What is one of the single most powerful instructional interventions for students with disabilities?  Explicitly teaching students to set specific attainable goals and to monitor their own progress towards reaching them.   The research supSet goalsport for teaching students with disabilities to monitor and regulate their own learning cuts across classifications, grade levels and content areas.  The strategy has been used effectively with students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, with behavioral challenges, with attention deficit disorder and with learning disabilities.  It has been implemented in preschool, elementary, middle and high school settings, and in special education, general education and alternative education settings.  It has been shown to positively impact academic achievement in reading, writing, mathematics and science; to improve academic behaviors like time on task, homework completion and accuracy of responding; to decrease inappropriate behaviors while increasing replacement behaviors; and to increase student feelings of self-effic
acy and independence.  On top of all this, studies have found that it has high social validity among students; that is, students report enjoying using the strategy!

Want to learn more about how you can teach this strategy to students in your classroom?  Read the RSE-TASC Reporter article in the Resources section on Student Goal-Setting and Progress Monitoring and check out the School Tool resources at http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/sr/#content and https://www.lessonplanet.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=self-monitoring