Praxis 5358 study plan

Map the four exam domains into a one-page outline listing every subarea you must cover, weighting each by the 25% share

Define the legal foundations of special education in your own words: IDEA's six principles, FAPE, LRE, procedural safeguards, and child find

Sequence the special education process from referral through eligibility, IEP development, placement, and annual review

Distinguish the roles of general education teacher, special education teacher, related service providers, and parents on the IEP team

Describe the defining characteristics, prevalence, and learning implications of high-incidence disabilities: specific learning disability, ADHD, emotional disturbance, and speech/language impairment

Describe low-incidence disabilities: intellectual disability, autism, deaf-blindness, orthopedic impairment, traumatic brain injury, and multiple disabilities

Explain the categories of hearing and vision loss and how each affects access to instruction and communication

Compare the developmental milestones of language, motor, social, and cognitive domains to identify red flags for referral

Analyze how disability interacts with culture, language, poverty, and trauma, and explain why disproportionality in identification matters

Trace typical versus atypical development in reading, writing, and mathematics to anticipate where students struggle

Identify the components of an IEP, including present levels, measurable annual goals, progress monitoring, and least restrictive environment justification

Draft two measurable annual goals with baseline, target, criteria, and monitoring method

Differentiate screening, pre-referral intervention, and comprehensive evaluation in purpose and timing

Explain the eligibility determination process, including the role of the multidisciplinary team and exclusionary factors such as lack of instruction or language difference

Interpret standard scores, percentile ranks, confidence intervals, and standard error of measurement in a sample evaluation report

Distinguish norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, curriculum-based, and informal assessment tools and when each is appropriate

Apply the discrepancy and response-to-intervention approaches to identifying specific learning disability, including the role of progress-monitoring data

Select testing accommodations that preserve construct validity, and justify each choice against the skill being measured

Design a curriculum-based measurement schedule and graph baseline data for a reading or math skill

Explain procedural safeguards, informed consent, prior written notice, and dispute resolution pathways including mediation and due process

Write present levels of academic achievement and functional performance that connect assessment data to instructional need

Apply universal design for learning principles to plan multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression

Design explicit instruction sequences using modeling, guided practice, and independent practice with corrective feedback

Plan scaffolded supports such as graphic organizers, chunking, pre-teaching vocabulary, and assistive technology for a specific learner profile

Build a behavior intervention plan from a functional behavior assessment, including antecedent, behavior, consequence analysis and replacement behaviors

Differentiate accommodations, modifications, and supplementary aids and services with concrete examples of each

Describe collaborative and co-teaching models and the communication practices that sustain them with general education partners

Explain the special education teacher's ethical and legal obligations around confidentiality, documentation, and mandated reporting

Complete two full-length timed practice tests and log every missed item by domain and error type

Re-teach your three weakest subareas using your own notes, and verify each with a fresh set of practice items

Recite from memory the eligibility categories, the IEP components, and the sequence of procedural safeguards

Build a one-page pre-exam review sheet of high-yield definitions and legal terms