By Faith Berens, M.ED., Reading and Dyslexia Specialist, HSLDA Special Needs Consultant and SPED Homeschool Board Member

Home education is growing as a viable education alternative and solution, particularly for students with unique learning needs. Due to its very nature, homeschooling is an excellent individualized educational program. Parents who have children with special needs can navigate the lingo of the special education world, which includes diagnostic terms, labels, and acronyms! However, if you are not already familiar with the term, IEP, individual education program (or plan), that is what we are delving into here. So, get a cup of coffee or tea, and let’s chat.

 

IEPs, ISPs, 504 Accommodations Plans, and Student Education Plans!

IEPs and 504 Accommodation Plans can best be explained as legal contracts between a school and parents that provide detailed information about how a student’s needs will best be met by the school. If your child was or is enrolled in a public school, he/she may already have an IEP that was created by you and the school staff. Or perhaps he/she has an official written 504 Accommodation Plan that lays out what types of accommodations the student needs to access content/information or be able to “output” and show what they have learned. Examples of accommodations may include things such as enlarged text, extra time, frequent breaks, adaptive equipment, or the use of assistive technology.  

These written plans contain the specifics of an organized and cohesive education plan, which include the following:  

  • What? The plan should describe any special education, related services, therapy, or specialized instruction and intervention the school will provide for the student – for example, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, specific reading intervention, or remediation strategies. 
  • When will services be given? The plan should specify the duration and frequency of those services, like 2x/week for 20-minute sessions.
  • Who will deliver and implement the intervention, instruction, and therapy services? It could be a special education resource teacher, reading specialist, occupational therapist, speech/language pathologist, or paraprofessional.
  • Where will services occur?  Services can be in the regular classroom, therapist office, or resource classroom.
  • How long? IEPs are developed annually for specific areas that typically include behavior, social, emotional, language, and academics.

Some states allow homeschooled students to access special education-related services. If this is an option in your area, you may choose to request that the IEP shift to an ISP, Individual Service Plan. To check your state’s policies regarding homeschoolers accessing special education services, access the HSLDA website, and then select your state to read about your state’s special education provisions.

But what if your child does not have access to special-education related services OR you do not wish to tap into those services? What other options does a homeschool parent have?

 

Student Education Plan (SEP): A Homeschool IEP

Homeschool families may choose to draft a Student Education Plan (SEP), or Special Student Educational Plan, the homeschool version of an IEP. Think of this document as a blueprint to your child’s success with his home education plan. It can be a great way to keep you focused on your child’s academic needs and goals as well as prioritize other important interventions, services, and growth opportunities during a particular school year.

This document should contain the following parts and information:  

  • Student information (name, date of birth, grade level, etc.)
  • Student Education/Special Education Team members (parents, medical specialists, diagnosing professional, therapists, or tutors)
  • Current levels of performance (levels of functioning cognitively and academically, such as skill levels for math and reading, and a summary of difficulty areas, strengths, and weaknesses)
  • Annual goals (behavioral, emotional, self-help/daily living, spiritual, and academic)
  • Services and interventions (this may include therapies, specific interventions, tutoring, and remediation plans or curricula)
  • Accommodations and modifications (adaptive equipment, assistive technology tools, and supplemental supports provided)
  • Progress monitoring and reporting (how will your student be assessed, such as standardized testing, teacher observation, anecdotal notes, portfolio review, developmental assessments with specialists, etc.)

 

Why Drafting a Written Student Education Plan Can Be Beneficial AND encouraging!

Many parents wonder, why would I want to or even need to draft a student education plan?  

  1. Peace of mind: By crafting, maintaining, and updating your student’s education plan in your homeschool file, you, as the educator and administrator of your school, are documenting the important steps you are taking to provide for your child’s unique learning challenges and needs. This document will then be at-the-ready should your homeschooling ever come under question by authorities, doctors, well-meaning professionals, or even family members.  
  2. Access to accommodations: If your child needs access to accommodations or modifications, such as at a vocational school, for college entrance exams, and even at the local community college, you can then provide a copy of your student’s individualized educational plan.  
  3. Encouragement: From one homeschooling mama to another, writing out this plan can be truly encouraging, particularly on days when we feel we are not doing enough or doubt we can provide what our child needs. It is helpful to pull out this document, review our child’s progress, reflect on our goals, and remind ourselves of all the ways home education is truly an excellent, individualized educational plan! You got this!!

 

*If you are a member of HSLDA, please feel free to reach out to our special needs consultants to obtain a Student Education Plan template, guidance with creating your SEP, review, and feedback on your SEP draft, and/or finding therapy as well as other support and resources! 

** If you would like to write your homeschool SEP by yourself or with the help of your student’s therapy providers or an independent homeschool consultant, check out this page on our website for our free IEP template and guide.

 

 

 

 


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Faith Berens, M.Ed., Reading and Dyslexia Specialist &
HSLDA Special Needs Consultant

When it comes to reading levels, choosing books at just the right reading level can help your child enjoy reading and will help them succeed in becoming a better reader. Being able to determine your child’s instructional reading level and then select books to match this level can certainly be a helpful skill for you, the parent-teacher, to master. Doing so will aid in your child’s success and can save your sanity because it means fewer tears of frustration! Let’s face it, most of the time, people avoid things that are too hard! Books that are too hard, or at “frustration level” can be very discouraging for children. However, reading books that are too easy (while helpful for practice for fluency and expression) don’t provide enough of a challenge to help kids grow in their decoding and vocabulary skills.  

 

There are 3 different levels of reading:

  • Easy level: at this level, the student can read the text with 95% or better accuracy for word recognition
  • Frustration level: at this level, the student is only able to read the text with 89% accuracy or less
  • Instructional level: at this level, the student can read the text with 90-94% accuracy; this level is the “sweet spot,” known in the education world as the “ZPD”-zone of proximal development. In this zone, learning is just right! You want to find text that is in this zone. 

 

Follow these easy steps to select books at just the right level for your child.

1. Determine your child’s measured reading level.

Parents can get an approximate (but pretty accurate) idea of their child’s reading level by using the San Diego Quick Assessment of Reading Ability. (Download a PDF of the assessment.)

2. Look for books that match his/her level.

Many children’s books list a reading level on the back cover, book jacket, or spine.  Scholastic’s Book Wizard can help you search for books at your child’s reading level. 

3. Use the five-finger check to determine if the book is too hard, too easy, or just right!

Ask your child to hold up five fingers and read one page of a book. Each time your child doesn’t know a word, put one finger down. If all five fingers end up down, the book is too hard.

4. Use oral narration or retelling to do a quick comprehension check. 

After reading a few pages, have your child pause and tell you about what was just read. Get him to describe what he was picturing or imagining in his mind while he was reading. If he is unable to tell you what he was picturing, he may not be “making a movie” in his mind while reading and this skill can be taught.  

 

Often, there can be a discrepancy between a student’s silent reading comprehension level and oral reading comprehension level. If the student performs better with comprehension by reading aloud to himself, this can indicate the need for more auditory feedback and could perhaps signal weakness in auditory, working memory, or even visualization skills. 

 

Comprehension Levels:

When it comes to reading instruction, it can also be helpful for parent-teachers to understand that there are different comprehension levels for reading:

  • Listening level comprehension: what level of text the student can listen to being read aloud and understand 
  • Silent reading comprehension level: what level of text the student can read to himself silently and understand
  • Oral reading comprehension level: what level of text the student can read out loud and understand

Many bright but struggling readers can listen to and comprehend text at much higher levels than they can decode on their own. So, reading aloud, shared reading and echo readings, and providing books on audio are great ways to accommodate and facilitate reading. Also, using audiobooks while following along with text (audio assisted reading) is a research-based intervention that has yielded positive results with struggling students. Often, there can be a discrepancy between a student’s silent reading comprehension level and oral reading comprehension level. If the student performs better with comprehension by reading aloud to himself, this can indicate the need for more auditory feedback and could perhaps signal weakness in auditory, working memory, or even visualization skills. 

 

Looking for teaching tips and types of texts to motivate and encourage struggling or reluctant readers?

  • Use a program, intervention, or curricula such as Visualizing and Verbalizing, available at Gander Publishing, Equipping Minds, available at www.equippingminds.com, or Diane Craft’s resources, available at www.diannecraft.org, to train and equip students to make connections, visualize, comprehend, remember, and express their thoughts with language in organized ways.
  • Graphic novels, such as the Histronauts series, can be a great choice for struggling students! Read this post at Understood.org about why graphic novels can be a great choice for struggling readers.
  • Try Reader’s Theater, poetry/rhymes and jingles, and repeated readings to increase fluency and develop expression and prosody, which will, in turn, improve comprehension skills. Be sure to check out Dr. Timothy Rasinski’s teaching materials, available through Scholastic publishers.  
  • High interest/low or easy readability materials can be particularly motivating and helpful for older students or reluctant readers. Check out the many resources at High Noon Books, https://www.highnoonbooks.com/index-hnb.tpl

 

Let’s Talk Book Leveling Systems:

Keep in mind that finding books that are not too hard, not too easy, but in the “just right” zone is not an exact science, but rather an art that homeschool parents can master. However, understanding designated reading levels can sometimes be confusing for parents particularly because there are several different leveling systems out there—grade level, interest level, Lexile levels, guided reading levels, to Accelerated Reader (AR) levels, your head could be spinning!  

And you may be wondering, where did the levels/numbers come from? They are generated by a mathematical readability formula. Readability formulas were created in the 1920s when science teachers expressed an interest in having simplified texts for students. Readability formulas were created to count the number of syllables and words and then rate the complexity of sentence structure in any given passage; the higher the number, then the more difficult level the text. And textbooks were then created/written at varying levels of difficulty. Series of books, such as those used in classrooms around the world during guided oral reading lessons, are “leveled” on a text gradient of difficulty, from levels A-Z. The popular homeschool reading curriculum A Reason for Guided Reading, https://areasonfor.com/collections/guided-reading, employs this leveling system.  

Today, libraries often use reading levels and also book publishers use them to provide adults with an age range or reading level on the back of the book which then makes selection easier and handy. In public and private schools across the nation, computerized reading programs, such as Accelerated Reader (AR) have been adopted. Such programs use readability formulas to calculate a reading level as well as assign numbers of points that are awarded for passing a comprehension quiz after the student has read the book.  

But when it comes to reading leveling systems—here’s the rub—each publisher and each computerized reading software company uses different readability formulas, so the same title can have several corresponding levels depending upon the formula that was used. It can be confusing trying to understand what is meant, for example, by a Guided Reading level M as opposed to a Lexile of 240. 

 

Other Helpful Websites & Articles:

 

 

 

 

 


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