How to write a reading fluency IEP goal from a baseline (rate of improvement math)

A reading fluency goal is only as good as the arithmetic behind it. The target should come from three things you can show on paper: the student's baseline, a weekly growth rate you chose for a stated reason, and the number of instructional weeks before the goal ends.

This page walks through that math with one fictional student, start to finish. For fill-in goal wording and examples at every grade, use the companion page of reading fluency IEP goals with WCPM targets. For choosing the intervention itself, start with the cluster guide to reading fluency interventions.

What you need before you start

• Three baseline probes on unpracticed passages at one level, scored for WCPM and accuracy. The scoring rules are in how to calculate words correct per minute.
• The school calendar for the IEP year, so you can count weeks of instruction rather than calendar weeks.
• Your screener's norms tables, if you will use a typical growth rate. Use the tables for the same passage set your probes come from.
• Last year's progress data, if it exists. It tells you how fast this student actually grew under last year's plan.

Step 1: Confirm it is a rate goal

Check accuracy before you do any rate math. If the student reads fewer than about 95% of words correctly, a WCPM target will reward guessing. Write an accuracy goal first, as explained in reading accuracy vs fluency. The 95% figure is a common working rule, not a norm.

Example: a student reads 61 WCPM at 89% accuracy. This is a decoding problem that shows up as slow reading. A student who reads 61 WCPM at 97% accuracy has a rate problem, and the rest of this page applies.

Step 2: Pick the passage level and keep it all year

Decide whether the goal will use grade-level passages or instructional-level passages. Grade-level probes show the gap with peers. Instructional-level probes are fairer when a student is far behind, because a frustration-level passage barely moves week to week.

Whichever you pick, take the baseline at that level and write it into the goal. A baseline on grade 3 passages and a target on grade 5 passages cannot be compared.

Step 3: Take the median of three probes

Order the three WCPM scores and take the middle one. Do the same for accuracy. Probes of 64, 78 and 71 WCPM give a median of 71. The median protects the goal from one easy or hard passage. The baseline data guide covers dates and conditions.

Step 4: Choose a weekly growth rate

This is the step most goals skip. The National Center on Intensive Intervention describes three ways to set a progress monitoring goal: an end-of-year benchmark, a typical rate of improvement from norms, or the student's own rate of growth.^[1] Each gives a different number of words per week.

Then decide how ambitious to be. A goal must be appropriately ambitious in light of the student's circumstances, the standard the Supreme Court set in Endrew F.^[2] For a student who is far behind, the typical rate only keeps the gap the same size. Many teams aim between the typical rate and the gap-closing rate. The appropriately ambitious goals guide explains how to justify that choice.

Expected WCPM growth per week

There is no single correct number. Expected weekly growth depends on the grade, the time of year and the passage set, and it is published with each tool's norms. Read it from the table for your tool. If your school has no screener norms, the compiled oral reading fluency norms published by Hasbrouck and Tindal give WCPM percentiles by grade for fall, winter and spring.^[4] A weekly rate can be estimated from them: subtract the fall score from the spring score at the same percentile and divide by the weeks between the two testing windows. Do not borrow a rate from a different tool or a website chart, because passage sets differ in difficulty. The rates in the example below are made up to show the arithmetic.

Step 5: Count instructional weeks

Count from the week after the baseline to the week the goal ends. Then subtract weeks with no instruction: winter break, spring break and testing weeks. A goal written for "36 weeks" that really has 30 weeks of teaching sets a target the student cannot reach.

Step 6: Do the math and write the goal

Round to a whole number. Then write the goal with the passage level, the word "unpracticed", the target, an accuracy floor, the median rule and the probe schedule. Paste the draft into the goal checker to catch a missing part.

Worked example from start to finish

Theo is a fictional 5th grader with an IEP for a specific learning disability in reading. All numbers are illustrations.

Baseline (October 6). Three unpracticed grade 5 passages: 64, 78 and 71 WCPM, at 95%, 97% and 96% accuracy. Median: 71 WCPM at 96%. Theo is accurate but slow, so this is a rate goal.

Weeks. The goal ends the week of June 1. That is 34 calendar weeks, minus 4 weeks of breaks and state testing: 30 instructional weeks.

Three candidate rates.

Last year's rate would leave Theo further behind. The benchmark rate is double the typical rate and not realistic in one year. The team picks 1.3 words per week, above typical and below gap-closing, and adds a fourth day of repeated reading to the plan.

Target. 71 + (1.3 x 30) = 110 WCPM.

Goal. By June 1, given an unpracticed grade 5 passage, Theo will read aloud 110 words correct per minute with at least 96% accuracy, measured by the median of 3 passages at each benchmark check and by weekly single-passage probes. Baseline: 71 WCPM at 96% accuracy on October 6.

Objectives. Each one follows the same 1.3-word weekly line: 84 WCPM by December 15 (10 weeks), 97 WCPM by March 9 (20 weeks), 110 WCPM by June 1 (30 weeks).

Measuring the goal: probes and a filled-in data sheet

Give one unpracticed grade 5 passage a week from the same probe set, on the same day if you can. Use the median of three passages at the fall, winter and spring checks. Weekly probes are the core of oral reading fluency monitoring, and the IEP must say how progress will be measured and reported.^[3]

Here are Theo's first 8 weeks on the reading fluency data sheet. The goal line column adds 1.3 words each week to the baseline of 71.

A trend line through these 8 points rises about 1.6 words per week, a little above the goal line. Accuracy has held at or above the floor. The team keeps the plan and checks again at week 12. If 4 points in a row had fallen below the goal line, the four-point rule would call for a change. To draw the lines, see graphing IEP data with aimlines, and for the slope math see the rate of improvement calculation.

Common mistakes

• Weak: "Theo will read 120 WCPM by the end of the year," with 120 taken from a chart. Better: Show the baseline, the weekly rate and the weeks, so anyone can check the target.
• Weak: Counting 36 calendar weeks. Better: Count instructional weeks only, after taking out breaks and testing.
• Weak: Using the student's slow rate from last year as the plan for this year. Better: Set a higher rate and change the instruction so the higher rate is possible.
• Weak: A WCPM target with no accuracy floor. Better: Add "with at least 96% accuracy" so rushing does not count.
• Weak: Taking the baseline on grade 3 passages and probing on grade 5 passages. Better: One passage level for the baseline, every probe and the target.

Templates and tools

The oral reading rate template builds this goal with your numbers. More templates are on the fluency goals page. Terms used here are defined in the glossary under curriculum-based measurement and probe.

Frequently asked questions

Use it in IEP Atlas

• Fluency goals (reading)
• Oral reading fluency measurement guide
• Reading fluency data sheet
• WCPM in the IEP glossary
• IEP goal checker
• Curriculum based measurement in the IEP glossary

Related guides

• Reading fluency interventions that work
• Reading fluency IEP goals with WCPM targets
• Reading accuracy vs fluency: which to target first
• Student fluency graph template with a completed example
• Reading fluency activities at home: 10 minutes a night

Sources

1. Progress Monitoring: Data & Goal Setting, National Center on Intensive Intervention
2. Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District RE-1, 580 U.S. 386 (2017), Supreme Court of the United States
3. 34 CFR §300.320: Definition of individualized education program, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
4. An Update to Compiled ORF Norms, Technical Report #1702 (Hasbrouck and Tindal, 2017), Behavioral Research and Teaching, University of Oregon, via ERIC

Written and checked by the IEP Atlas editorial team under our editorial policy. This guide describes general practice and federal rules. It is not legal advice; your state may add requirements, and the IEP team makes the decisions for each student.