Journal Week

Student’s Name
Instructor’s Name
Course
Date
Journal Week 7-221
An Individualized Education Program (IEP) forms an essential part of the process of getting special education. A learner’s teachers, parents, and other providers of different services meet up to build consensus about the learning accommodations needed to help the student to meet some set goals. Before writing an IEP, it must be established that the student needs specific services, and is eligible to obtain them as per the Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA). Teams can write IEPs for social, academic, behavioral, and emotional disabilities.
Once a team writes the IEP, and it is approved by the school and parents, then, the teacher or professional can offer the services. Under this program, progress has to be reported regularly to enable the parents to know if the goals of a particular year are being met (Heitin para. 5). At least once each year, the IEP team comes together to review the progress of the learner. During these reviews, the personnel and parents can decide if the plan should be revised or continued. In the video titled “Routine in a program – reading at circle time,” the learner with the special need is called Jacob. As the clip suggests, the special need that Jacob has something to do with speech articulation. In the entire video, the teacher is seen trying to teach Jacob and other kids how to read words from a book. As explained in the video, the teacher chooses to incorporate other kids in the routine reading exercise so that Jacob can hear how they pronounce the words and learn from them (FPG n.

pag.). Specifically, when one kid reads a word and Jacob sees that word, he gets an idea of how it should sound. With more of such sessions, it is expected that he would master the word and many more, and be able to articulate his speech to the level desired by the IEP team.
In conclusion, it is important to state that the cited video is a simplified illustration of how teachers can use different means to achieve IEP goals for specific students. As stated in the paper, IEP goals are set by specific teams for specific students. In this case, the particular team that set the goals is not mentioned; however, it is clear that the goal is to achieve a certain level of speech articulation. Through routine book reading, Jacob – the student with the special needs – can hear fellow kids pronounce some words and try to pronounce them similarly. With practice, it is likely that his pronunciation or speech articulation would have significantly improved within the year.
Works Cited
FPG. “CONNECT Video 1.16: Routine in a Program-Reading at Circle Time.” YouTube,
YouTube, 21 Aug. 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHGFQOoMcKw.
Heitin, Ruth. “Writing IEP Goals.” Jarron Draper v. Atlanta Independent School System (N.D.
GA 2007) – Wrightslaw, www.wrightslaw.com/info/goals.lesson.heitin.htm.