This is what you get. All of it.

What arrives

A parent sends the IEP. This is the language it comes in — accurate, careful, and written for a compliance file rather than for a nine-year-old or her mother.

Student: Maya R. (invented)

Grade: 4

Classification: Autism

Annual review: March

Annual Goal 1 — Reading, decoding

Given a list of unfamiliar two-syllable words containing closed and vowel-team syllables, Maya will decode 8 of 10 words accurately across 3 consecutive sessions.

Present level (March): Decodes single-syllable words reliably. Reads 3 of 10 unfamiliar two-syllable words accurately.

Annual Goal 2 — Reading, comprehension

Given a grade-level informational text, Maya will identify the main idea and two supporting details with 80% accuracy in 4 of 5 trials.

Present level (March): Identifies the main idea in 1 of 5 grade-level informational passages. Cites supporting details at approximately 40% accuracy.

Annual Goal 3 — Writing

Maya will compose a paragraph containing a topic sentence and at least two supporting reasons, with 3 or fewer adult prompts, in 4 of 5 opportunities.

Present level (March): Produces a topic sentence in 2 of 5 opportunities. Requires an average of 7 adult prompts to complete a paragraph.

Annual Goal 4 — Mathematics

Maya will solve two-step word problems using addition, subtraction, and multiplication within 1,000, showing her work, with 75% accuracy across 4 of 5 trials.

Present level (March): Solves single-step problems within 100 at 80% accuracy. Solves 1 of 5 two-step problems with work shown.

Management needs: Advance notice of transitions. Reduced auditory input during independent work. Extended time. Responds well to predictable routine.

Nothing here is wrong. But read it again and notice: Maya appears four times, always as the object of the sentence. There is not one word about what she likes. That is the gap we work in.

The Blueprint

Delivered five business days after the IEP arrives. Every goal in plain English, a year mapped across four expeditions, and the first one built around what this specific child is into. Maya draws sneakers. Constantly.

Goal 1 — decode 8 of 10 unfamiliar two-syllable words, closed and vowel-team syllables, 3 consecutive sessions.

Break longer words into chunks and read them without guessing — starting with the words printed on the shoes she already owns.

Goal 2 — main idea and two supporting details, 80% accuracy, 4 of 5 trials.

Read something and say what it's actually about, then back it up with two specific things it said.

Goal 3 — paragraph with topic sentence and two supporting reasons, 3 or fewer prompts.

Make an argument in writing. State your case up front, then give two reasons someone should agree with you.

Goal 4 — two-step word problems within 1,000, showing work, 75%.

Work out a real cost that takes two steps to figure — and show the steps clearly enough that someone else can check them.

First expedition · weeks 1–9

Design a sneaker. Pitch it to somebody.

Maya designs a shoe — the materials, the colorway, the name — prices out what it would cost to make, and writes the pitch for why it should exist. At week 9 she presents it to her mother and her cousin.

Goal 1 lives in the materials list. Midsole, outsole, eyelet, canvas, cushion, stitching, padding, upper. Every one is a two-syllable word she has a reason to read.
Goal 2 lives in the research. She reads sneaker reviews and pulls out what the reviewer actually thinks, plus two things they said to prove it.
Goal 3 lives in the pitch. Topic sentence: why this shoe should exist. Two reasons. Written to a real person who will read it.
Goal 4 lives in the costing. Materials plus labor. Two steps. Work shown, because someone is going to check the number.

Weeks 1–9

The Sneaker

Design, cost, and pitch a shoe.

Weeks 10–18

The Block

Find one thing wrong on her street. Make the case to fix it.

Weeks 19–27

The Business

Price and run a small real thing. Track what it made.

Weeks 28–36

The Record

Build something that teaches what she learned to a younger kid.

All thirty-six weeks

Not a sample. The whole year, week by week, written before week 1 so you can see where it goes. Every week carries all four goals on the same rhythm — decoding Monday, comprehension Tuesday, math Wednesday, writing Thursday. The tag on each week says which goal that week's work leans hardest on.

Weeks 1–9 The Sneaker

01
What's missing from the shelf?She lists what she likes and hates about the shoes already in her closet, then reads two short reviews to see how other people say it.
Goal 2 · comprehension
02
Name every part.Midsole, outsole, eyelet, upper, canvas, stitching. Eight parts, read and labeled on her own drawing.
Goal 1 · decoding
03
Who is this shoe for?She reads about who wears what and why, then picks one wearer and says what that person actually needs.
Goal 2 · comprehension
04
Draw it three ways.Three colorways, each one named. Every color and material she picks is a word she has to read to use.
Goal 1 · decoding
05
What is it made of?The materials list, with how much of each. Her first real quantities.
Goal 4 · math
06
What does the sole cost?Midsole foam and rubber outsole for 40 pairs. Two steps, work shown. The pitch gets drafted the same week. This is the week shown in full below.
Goal 4 · math
07
What does the whole shoe cost?Add labor and the box. Two steps again, bigger numbers, same rule — show it so somebody can check it.
Goal 4 · math
08
Somebody read it. Fix it.Her cousin reads the pitch and says which parts he didn't follow. She rewrites those lines.
Goal 3 · writing
09
Present it.To her mother and her cousin, out loud, with the drawing and the number.
Goal 3 · writing

Weeks 10–18 The Block

10
Walk the block. Write down what's broken.Six things, in her own words, before anybody tells her which one matters.
Goal 2 · comprehension
11
Pick one. Say why that one.A paragraph: the thing she picked, and two reasons it matters more than the other five.
Goal 3 · writing
12
Does anybody else notice?She asks five neighbors the same question and tallies what comes back.
Goal 4 · math
13
How is it supposed to work?She reads the actual 311 page for that complaint. Real vocabulary, written for adults, and she gets through it.
Goal 1 · decoding
14
What would fixing it cost?Two real prices, one total. Two steps, shown.
Goal 4 · math
15
Who do you tell?She reads listings until she finds the office that actually handles it, and the name of a person there.
Goal 1 · decoding
16
Write the letter.Topic sentence, two reasons, and the number from week 14 doing the arguing.
Goal 3 · writing
17
Read it to somebody who disagrees.Then fix the two lines that lost them.
Goal 3 · writing
18
Send it. Write down what happens.And read the reply, if one comes.
Goal 2 · comprehension

Weeks 19–27 The Business

19
What could you sell in a week?Three ideas on paper, plus how two other kids did it.
Goal 2 · comprehension
20
What does one cost to make?She picks one idea and prices the parts for a single unit.
Goal 4 · math
21
What do people already charge?Three real prices, and what you get for each one.
Goal 2 · comprehension
22
Set your price. Show the work.Cost per unit, then the price, then why there's a gap between them.
Goal 4 · math
23
Make ten.She follows her own written steps — and rewrites the ones that turned out to be wrong.
Goal 1 · decoding
24
The sign and the pitch.One sentence on why somebody should buy it, then two reasons.
Goal 3 · writing
25
Sell it.One real afternoon. She says the pitch out loud, to people who are not her family.
Goal 3 · writing
26
Count it.What came in, what it cost, what's left. Two steps, shown.
Goal 4 · math
27
What would you do differently?Written down while it's still fresh enough to be honest.
Goal 3 · writing

Weeks 28–36 The Record

28
Who are you teaching?She picks one real younger kid and writes down what that kid can already do.
Goal 3 · writing
29
What do you know now that you didn't in week 1?She reads her own Log from the whole year and pulls the main idea out of it.
Goal 2 · comprehension
30
Pick the one thing worth teaching.Out of a year of work, one thing — and what in the Log says so.
Goal 2 · comprehension
31
How do good instructions work?She reads a how-to for something she already likes and marks how it's built.
Goal 1 · decoding
32
Draft the guide.Topic sentence, the steps, then two reasons it's worth learning.
Goal 3 · writing
33
The numbers page.What things cost and how she worked it out, laid out so the kid can check her.
Goal 4 · math
34
Test it on the kid.Watch where they stop. Write down exactly where.
Goal 2 · comprehension
35
Fix the parts that didn't land.Usually it's the words. She rewrites them shorter.
Goal 1 · decoding
36
Hand it over.The guide goes to the kid. The year's Log goes to the annual review.
Goal 3 · writing

Where each goal leads the week

All four goals run every week. These are the weeks built around each one, so you can see at a glance that none of them gets quietly dropped in February.

Goal 1 · decoding

Weeks 2, 4, 13, 15, 23, 31, 35

Goal 2 · comprehension

Weeks 1, 3, 10, 18, 19, 21, 29, 30, 34

Goal 3 · writing

Weeks 8, 9, 11, 16, 17, 24, 25, 27, 28, 32, 36

Goal 4 · math

Weeks 5, 6, 7, 12, 14, 20, 22, 26, 33

How we'll know it's working

A plan that can't be checked is a wish. The IEP records where the school measured Maya in March. We start in September, with a different person in a different room, so the first thing built is a fresh baseline — and a written rule for what counts as evidence and what doesn't.

Week 0 — the baseline, before any teaching

Goal 1 · decoding

School, March

3 of 10 unfamiliar two-syllable words

Our week 0 probe

4 of 10 — sessions of 3, 4, 4

Target by week 36

8 of 10, three sessions running

Goal 2 · comprehension

School, March

Main idea in 1 of 5 passages; details ~40%

Our week 0 probe

33% — 1 of 3 questions right across two passages

Target by week 36

80%, in 4 of 5 trials

Goal 3 · writing

School, March

Topic sentence in 2 of 5; average 7 adult prompts

Our week 0 probe

Topic sentence in 2 of 5; 6 prompts on average

Target by week 36

Topic sentence and two reasons, 3 prompts or fewer, 4 of 5

Goal 4 · mathematics

School, March

1 of 5 two-step problems with work shown

Our week 0 probe

3 of 4 answers correct, but work shown on only 1

Target by week 36

75%, with work shown, in 4 of 5 trials

That last line is the useful one. Maya can already do more of the arithmetic than her file suggests — what she isn't doing is showing it. That changes what gets taught, and it would have stayed invisible without a baseline.

What counts as data, and what doesn't

Practice is not measurement. Monday through Thursday is coached work. She gets help, she gets second tries, and none of it goes in as a score.
A probe is cold. Material she has never seen, no help while it's happening, no correction until it's finished. That's the only thing recorded as a number.
Never probe with the week's own material. If a score jumps, the first thing to check is whether this week's words leaked into the probe — not whether she had a breakthrough.
Self-corrections count. If she catches it herself within a few seconds and no adult said anything, it's correct. That's what reading actually is.

How often, and how long it takes

Goal 1 · decoding

Every week · 10 unfamiliar words · about 4 minutes

Goal 2 · comprehension

Even weeks · one unseen passage, 3 questions · about 15 minutes

Goal 4 · mathematics

Even weeks · 4 new two-step problems · about 15 minutes

Goal 3 · writing

Odd weeks · one paragraph written alone, prompts counted as they happen · about 20 minutes

Writing sits on the opposite week from the other two on purpose. An even week costs about 35 minutes of measurement spread across four days; an odd week costs about 24. It has to be small enough that it actually gets done.

What happens when it isn't working

Four probes in a row below the line and we change the teaching, not the goal. The criterion in the IEP does not move because the work got hard.
You hear it from me first. A flat month gets said out loud on the monthly call before you read it in the Log. Nobody should discover a stall by scrolling.
Some goals stall for reasons the plan can't fix. If that's what the data says, that's what I'll tell you — and it may be worth raising with her team.

What this measurement is not. It is collected at a kitchen table by a parent and by me — not in a controlled setting, not by an evaluator, and not under the conditions a school uses. It is not progress reporting and it does not replace the school's. The softest number here is the prompt count, because the adult counting the prompts is the same adult who wants her to do well; the rule is to write each one down as it happens, not from memory afterwards. And if our numbers and the school's disagree, that is information — different room, different person, different day — not an argument.

Same four goals in every expedition. The standards never soften. What changes is that the child has a reason to hit them.

A week of work

Week 6, as it actually lands in a parent's inbox on Sunday night. Three to four sessions, 20–40 minutes each, built for a school night after a long day.

Monday

Read the shoe

Twelve material words, one at a time. Untimed, and nothing marks her wrong — a word she misses comes back in chunks so she can go again.

Goal 1 · decoding
~20 min

Tuesday

What does this reviewer actually think?

One short sneaker review. Say the main idea in one sentence. Find two things in the text that prove it.

Goal 2 · comprehension
~25 min

Wednesday

What does the sole cost?

Midsole foam at $4 a pair, rubber outsole at $6. She needs 40 pairs. Two steps, work shown.

Goal 4 · math
~25 min

Thursday

Write the pitch

One paragraph. Why should this shoe exist? Say it in the first line, then give two reasons. Her cousin is the reader.

Goal 3 · writing
~30 min

Optional

Read it out loud to somebody

Not assessed. It's just different when someone hears it.

—

Management needs from the IEP are built in, not bolted on: every session opens by naming what's coming, nothing on this list is timed, and none of it requires her to work through noise.

The Log

This is the part that changes the next meeting. Everything Maya does gets written down against the goal it belongs to — reported back in the goal's own words, so the numbers line up with the language already in her file.

Two kinds of entry, and the difference matters. Probe rows are the cold, uncoached checks — those are the numbers. Practice rows are the week's actual work, which is coached and is never scored. Week 6 is an even week, so decoding, comprehension and mathematics were all probed.

ProbeFri · Week 6Annual Goal 1 — decoding

Cold probe. Ten unfamiliar two-syllable words, none of them used in this week's work. 9 of 10 accurate.
Words: napkin, sunset, rocket, basket, thunder, contain, remain, explain, seaside, oatmeal.
Missed: seaside — vowel team, read as two separate words. Not self-corrected, scored incorrect.
Baseline week 0: 4 of 10. Second consecutive probe at or above the 8-of-10 criterion; one more needed.

PracticeMon · Week 6Annual Goal 1 — decoding

Twelve material words from her own design: midsole, outsole, cushion, eyelet, canvas, rubber, padding, stitching, insert, upper, collar, lining. All twelve read. Eyelet needed chunking twice.
Coached, so not scored — and these words are now familiar, which rules them out of any future probe.

ProbeThu · Week 6Annual Goal 2 — comprehension

Unseen informational passage, 280 words, on how sneakers get recycled — deliberately not the review she worked from on Tuesday. Main idea: correct. Supporting details: 2 of 2, both text-based. 3 of 3 — 100%.
Baseline week 0: 33%. Four of the last five probes at or above the 80% criterion.

PracticeTue · Week 6Annual Goal 2 — comprehension

One short sneaker review, worked through with support. Said the main idea in a sentence, then found two things in the text to back it up. Coached, so not scored.

"He liked the shoe but he thinks it costs too much. He said the sole wears down in four months and he said the color runs."

ProbeThu · Week 6Annual Goal 4 — mathematics

Four new two-step problems within 1,000, none of them about sneakers. 3 of 4 with work shown — 75%.
The fourth: right answer, no work written down. Scored incorrect, because the goal says showing her work.
Baseline week 0: 3 of 4 answers correct but work shown on only 1. The arithmetic was never the problem; the writing-it-down was.

PracticeWed · Week 6Annual Goal 4 — mathematics

Two-step word problem within 1,000 — the cost of the sole. Both steps shown without prompting. Answer correct: $400.
Work as written: 4 + 6 = 10 · 10 × 40 = 400. Coached task, so not scored.

PracticeThu · Week 6Annual Goal 3 — writing

Paragraph composed. Topic sentence present. Two supporting reasons present. Adult prompts: 1, for spelling, written down as it was given.
Writing is probed on odd weeks — the next one is week 7.

"The Rainmaker should get made because kids need a shoe that works when it's wet outside. The bottom has grip so you don't slip on the wet part. And it's under fifty dollars so a kid can actually buy it."

Take that page into the annual review. It is dated, it is written in the same language as the goals themselves, and it is the child's own work. You will not be the only person in the room without paper.