Help Students with Learning Disabilities Succeed by Setting Short- and Long-Term Goals

Set students with disabilities up for success by supporting them with short- and long-term goal setting. Utilize strengths within the goal-setting process, and work with students to track progress, provide feedback and assess. Goal setting for students with disabilities will improve learning and give students confidence and momentum.

Leverage Strengths to Overcome Challenges

When working with students who have learning disabilities, teachers and school psychologists look for a pattern of strengths and weaknesses in students’ learning attributes. For example, a student may have a strong short-term memory, but long-term memory retrieval may be a challenge. Teachers help students learn how to use their strengths to overcome their challenges. This is not an easy task. Learning disabilities can be different from student to student, which is why the Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for students with learning disabilities can vary from student to student.

Set Short- and Long-Term Goals

One way adults can help students with learning disabilities succeed academically is by working with them to set short- and long-term goals. Individual goal setting for students with disabilities can support students’ unique learning journeys. Here are some ideas that will help you jump start the goal setting process with your students.

Encourage Student Participation

To help increase students’ engagement in the goal setting process, give them an active role in writing their goals. Students of all ages can set goals. Teachers should act as facilitators to strengthen goals, but should never dictate goals directly. If you reach a stalemate with a student who wants a goal to be too easy or unrealistic, try asking the student a series of reflective questions. An example would be, “How will this goal help your education?” If you still have no success, let the matter rest for a day or two, then revisit it.

Set Long-Term Goals First

How long should a long-term goal be? This can change based on the individual student and their needs. A single school year is a manageable time to plan. Personally, I do not set goals for time periods longer than a year. I can understand wanting to help students set goals to graduate from high school or go to college. However, unless the student is a senior in high school, I consider these goals to be beyond long-term goals. I would call them life goals and would avoid overwhelming students with over planning.

Use Long-Term Goals to Set Short-Term Goals

Set short-term goals by breaking long-term goals into smaller pieces. For example, a student may have a long-term goal to write a paragraph with four to five complete sentences using correct grammar. This could be divided into three short-term goals. First, the student will construct complete sentences with a subject and a predicate. Second, the student will learn and apply punctuation. Last, the student will learn to construct a paragraph by first writing a topic sentence and then adding detail sentences. By creating realistic short term goals that work toward a larger goal the student will achieve success. The teacher can look at a long term goal and see which steps can be separated. The teacher can then guide the student to complete each short term goal, helping them to accomplish long-term goals. This process will guide the student into satisfying achievement.

Make Goals Reachable

Determining the difficulty level of student learning goals is a tricky business. The goals need to straddle the line of challenging-but-reachable. I have worked with colleagues who encouraged students to write very difficult goals. While these colleagues’ hearts were in the right place, they didn’t do their students any favors.The goals for individual students should be created with the student’s capabilities in mind. The goal should be accessible with incremental challenges included. The goals should be realistic and reachable to prevent student frustration or failure. If students never actually achieve any of their goals, it is easy for them to feel hopeless and give up on their education. Once this happens, students are at a higher risk of dropping out of school altogether.

Track Progress Regularly

If you set a short-term goal for a grading quarter, track progress at least bi-weekly. Tracking goals regularly helps you know if you need to adjust your teaching strategies to help students meet their goals. If adjustments need to be made, these changes should happen quickly and efficiently to prevent students from losing determination.

Provide Students with Feedback

Students feel encouraged when they see the progress they’re making towards their goals. If students are not making progress, provide positive and constructive feedback. If the student is working hard and you’re using effective teaching strategies, he or she may need extra repetitions to reach mastery. Encourage the student to keep trying! and remind them of strategies that will keep them working and energized! Recognizing their work will also encourage students that they are making demonstrative improvements.

Revisit Past Goals

After you have broken the long-term goal into smaller short-term goals, you will start working toward the first short-term goal. Once you have reached this goal, you will go on to the next short-term goal. After you have finished the last short-term goal, you will be ready for the student to put all the pieces together to achieve the long-term goal . . . only to find they have not retained the learning from the first short-term goal. Don’t get frustrated. Help your students avoid these kinds of learning situations by periodically revisiting past goals for a refresher lesson. Point out the progress they have made, reminding both you and the student of goals that have been achieved. Students will be able to see what they have accomplished when they frequently review goals made and met.

Keep Your Baseline Assessments

Before you start working on any goal, you should collect a baseline assessment to ascertain the student’s starting point. Always save these assessments. Once a student has reached a goal, let the student review the baseline assessment. This really helps show students how much progress they have made. This is another great way to boost students’ confidence and give them some momentum as they begin a new goal.

Students with learning disabilities need help to set achievable goals. Make small goals that merge into larger goals. Frequently assess the progress students make. Encourage students to continue to try challenges, while helping them to access manageable success. Build their confidence by frequently reviewing assessments and goals that have been achieved through consistent work and patience. Encourage both students and teachers by guiding students to realistic but satisfying goals and highlighting their progress along the way.