Phonics and Decoding IEP Goals | Templates & Examples
Updated: March 15, 2026. Reviewer: Dr. Rose Sebastian, Ed.D.
Free, Ready-to-Use IEP Goals for Phonics and Decoding Strategies
The skill of sounding out words is one of the most essential elements of reading. The Common Core blazes through these skills quickly while many students with disabilities need just a little more time. These 1st to 5th grade phonics goals draw on the Common Core standards, but are all modified to be useful for students. If you have students who need phonics skills past 5th grade and are in a district that requires all goals be tied to a grade level standard, use the reading level goals— those will get you to the same place and allow you to still focus in groups on teaching phonics. If you need more support with understanding goals, we have guides on how to read and evaluate IEP goals and state specific IEP guides too.
Know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.3c
- If your school is using a phonics program, it should come with a placement test that can be used to assess for this goal.
- In the store, we also have a stand alone decoding assessment with two versions that can be used for baseline writing and progress monitoring!
Need more ideas? Check out the PreK-2 Reading Present Levels and Assessments Resource page.
Looking for assessment resources or support with turning assessments into goals and present levels? Check out the IEP Success Kit in the store!
Monica can decode CVC words with 60% accuracy, words with blends and with digraphs with 40% accuracy, and long vowel words with 20% accuracy.
For more baseline ideas, check out the IEP Success Kit!
- _________ will know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds as demonstrated by reading a list of one syllable real and nonsense words with long vowels with 80% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.3c
These goals are slightly more challenging to modify than the fluency/reading levels goals because the letter patterns are fixed in the standards. That said, there are a few ways to adjust the goals.
- Changing the accuracy percentage
- _________ will know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds as demonstrated by reading a list of one syllable real and nonsense words with long vowels with 70% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.3c
- Changing the difficulty of the words read
- _________ will know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds as demonstrated by reading a list of one- and two-syllable real and nonsense words with long vowels with 80% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.3c
Second grade has two relevant standards:
- 2nd grade standard 1: Know spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3b
- 2nd grade standard 2: Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3c
- If your school is using a phonics program, it should come with a placement test that can be used to assess for this goal.
- In the store, we also have a stand alone decoding assessment with two versions that can be used for baseline writing and progress monitoring!
Need more ideas? Check out the 2nd-5th Grade Reading Present Levels and Assessments Resource page or the PreK-2 Reading Present Levels and Assessments Resource page.
Looking for assessment resources or support with turning assessments into goals and present levels? Check out the IEP Success Kit in the store!
Monica can decode CVC words with 70% accuracy, words with blends and with digraphs with 50% accuracy, and long vowel words with 20% accuracy.
For more baseline ideas, check out the IEP Success Kit!
- 2nd grade goal 1: __________ will know spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams as demonstrated by reading a list of one syllable real and nonsense words with “r” controlled vowels and vowel diphthongs with 80% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3b
- 2nd grade goal 2: _________ will decode regularly spelled, real and nonsense, two-syllable words with long vowels with 80% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3c
These goals are slightly more challenging to modify than the fluency/reading levels goals because the letter patterns are fixed in the standards. That said, there are a few ways to adjust the goals.
- Changing the accuracy percentage
- __________ will know spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams as demonstrated by reading a list of one syllable real and nonsense words with “r” controlled vowels and vowel diphthongs with 70% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3b
- _________ will decode regularly spelled, real and nonsense, two-syllable words with long vowels with 70% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3c
- Changing the difficulty of the words read
- __________ will know spelling-sound correspondences for additional common vowel teams as demonstrated by reading a list of multisyllabic real and nonsense words with “r” controlled vowels and vowel diphthongs with 80% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3b
- _________ will decode regularly spelled, real and nonsense, one-syllable words with long vowels with 70% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3c
Decode multisyllable words CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.3.3c
- If your school is using a phonics program, it should come with a placement test that can be used to assess for this goal.
- In the store, we also have a stand alone decoding assessment with two versions that can be used for baseline writing and progress monitoring!
Need more ideas? Check out the 2nd-5th Grade Reading Present Levels and Assessments Resource page.
Looking for assessment resources or support with turning assessments into goals and present levels? Check out the IEP Success Kit in the store!
Monica can decode CVC words proficiently. She can decode words with blends or digraphs with 50% accuracy, long vowel words and words with vowel diphthongs with 30% accuracy, and words with “r” controlled vowels with 20% accuracy.
For more baseline ideas, check out the IEP Success Kit!
- __________ will decode real and nonsense multisyllable words with consonant blends, digraphs, and long vowels with 80% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.3.3c
Because the third grade standard is just written for decoding multisyllabic words, you have some nice flexibility to modify the goals.
- Change the sound patterns
- __________ will decode real and nonsense multisyllable words with blends and digraphs with 80% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.3.3c
- __________ will decode real and nonsense multisyllable words with long vowels, “r” controlled vowels, and vowel diphthongs with 80% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.3.3c
- __________ will decode real and nonsense multisyllable words with “r” controlled vowels, and vowel diphthongs with 80% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.3.3c
- Changing the accuracy percentage
- __________ will decode real and nonsense multisyllable words with consonant blends, digraphs, and long vowels with 70% accuracy as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.3.3c
Use combined knowledge of all letter-sound correspondences, syllabication patterns, and morphology (e.g., roots and affixes) to read accurately unfamiliar multisyllabic words in context and out of context CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.4.3a
- If your school is using a phonics program, it should come with a placement test that can be used to assess for this goal.
- In the store, we also have a stand alone decoding assessment with two versions that can be used for baseline writing and progress monitoring!
Need more ideas? Check out the 2nd-5th Grade Reading Present Levels and Assessments Resource page.
Looking for assessment resources or support with turning assessments into goals and present levels? Check out the IEP Success Kit in the store!
Monica can decode CVC words proficiently. She can decode words with blends or digraphs with 50% accuracy, long vowel words and words with vowel diphthongs with 30% accuracy, and words with “r” controlled vowels with 20% accuracy.
For more baseline ideas, check out the IEP Success Kit!
- _______________ will read, with 80% accuracy, unfamiliar multisyllabic words with common long vowel patterns out of context (on a list) as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.4.3a
Because the fourth grade standard is just written for decoding multisyllabic words, you have some nice flexibility to modify the goals. Note that I removed the part of the standard on all letter-sound patterns. If you have a student who is working at an advanced level you might want to put it back in– but at that point most likely you have a different area of reading you would want to focus on for the IEP.
- Change the sound patterns
- _______ will read, with 80% accuracy, unfamiliar multisyllabic words with blends, diagraphs, and common long vowel patterns out of context (on a list) as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.4.3a
- ______will read, with 80% accuracy, unfamiliar multisyllabic words with “r” controlled vowels and vowel diphthongs out of context (on a list) as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.4.3a
- ______ will read, with 80% accuracy, unfamiliar multisyllabic words with blends, common long vowel patterns, “r” controlled vowels, and vowel diphthongs out of context (on a list) as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.4.3a
- Changing the accuracy percentage
- ______ will read, with 70% accuracy, unfamiliar multisyllabic words with “r” controlled vowels and vowel diphthongs out of context (on a list) as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.4.3a
Use combined knowledge of all letter-sound correspondences, syllabication patterns, and morphology (e.g., roots and affixes) to read accurately unfamiliar multisyllabic words in context and out of context CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.5.3a
- If your school is using a phonics program, it should come with a placement test that can be used to assess for this goal.
- In the store, we also have a stand alone decoding assessment with two versions that can be used for baseline writing and progress monitoring!
Need more ideas? Check out the 2nd-5th Grade Reading Present Levels and Assessments Resource page.
Looking for assessment resources or support with turning assessments into goals and present levels? Check out the IEP Success Kit in the store!
Monica can decode CVC words proficiently. She can decode words with blends or digraphs with 50% accuracy, long vowel words and words with vowel diphthongs with 30% accuracy, and words with “r” controlled vowels with 20% accuracy.
For more baseline ideas, check out the IEP Success Kit!
- _______________ will read, with 80% accuracy, unfamiliar multisyllabic words with common long vowel patterns out of context (on a list) as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.4.3a
Note that I removed the part of the standard on all letter-sound correspondence from the decoding IEP goal. If you have a student who is working at an advanced level you might want to put it back in– but at that point most likely you have a different area of reading you would want to focus on for the IEP.
- Change the sound patterns
- _______ will read, with 80% accuracy, unfamiliar multisyllabic words with blends, diagraphs, and common long vowel patterns out of context (on a list) as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.5.3a
- ______will read, with 80% accuracy, unfamiliar multisyllabic words with “r” controlled vowels and vowel diphthongs out of context (on a list) as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.5.3a
- ______ will read, with 80% accuracy, unfamiliar multisyllabic words with blends, common long vowel patterns, “r” controlled vowels, and vowel diphthongs out of context (on a list) as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.5.3a
- Changing the accuracy percentage
- ______ will read, with 70% accuracy, unfamiliar multisyllabic words with “r” controlled vowels and vowel diphthongs out of context (on a list) as measured by teacher records and observations CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.5.3a
