TAESE February 2009 Newsletter
Focus: Dyslexia
Table of Contents
Director's Corner
Imprecise Definition of Dyslexia
Dyslexia Resources
37 Common Characteristics of Dyslexia
One Out of Five Children Suffer From Dyslexia... A New Clinic Opened To Help
Lone Tree Dyslexia Center Puts Fun Back in Phonics
Couple Gives FSC $3.5 Million for Dyslexia School
Nemours Aims to Give Dyslexic Preschoolers a Bright Start
Dyslexia Policy Legislative Activity — Colorado
Dyslexia Policy Legislative Activity — Kansas
In many ways, I am very happy to see 2008 behind us. For many individuals and families, it was a very difficult year. The economic environment came crashing down, and the end of this challenge is nowhere in sight.
We have put the Presidential race behind us; the numerous debates and advertisements are finally over. We are all anxious about what direction this President will send us in the area of special education and services for children with disabilities.
In a sense, we are putting IDEA 2004 behind us. This Law is now up for reauthorization. IDEA 2004 could be characterized as the reauthorization for "special education accountability." The State Performance Plan (SPP), Annual Performance Report (APR), and Levels of Determination changed special education forever.
States across the country have developed sophisticated data systems and have hired staff with expertise in the areas of statistics and data collection. The February submission of the APR has become as important for States as the April 15 date for individuals in regard to taxes. Special education has entered the world of mathematics and data. Our conversations tend to be around indicators and sampling size rather than IEPs and procedural safeguards.
As we look forward, rather than behind us, new issues are emerging that will be equally challenging and controversial. The area of dyslexia has been gaining national attention. Dyslexia has always been a hot topic with differencing views and opinions, but the dialogue seems to be intensifying.
As State legislatures are in session across the country, the issue of services for children with dyslexia is being brought forward to lawmakers. There seems to be a push to create a new category in special education eligibility for children with dyslexia. Many individuals would argue that "dyslexia" is already covered in IDEA under CFR 300.8 (10). "Specific Learning Disability means a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in the imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia."
This TAESE Newsletter is "a focus on Dyslexia." Hopefully, the information will provide information for you to better understand dyslexia. The ultimate goal of all this discussion is to create a common understanding of the topic and provide the best possible services for children with dyslexia.
The loose and varied use of the label dyslexia to describe anyone who cannot read is confusing and unhelpful. Dyslexia is a neurologically related inability to decode text effectively, which may hamper or prevent comprehension in reading. Acquired dyslexia is due to brain injury, trauma, or stroke. Counter intuitively, developmental dyslexia is an inherent inability to develop rapid and accurate decoding skills in spite of effective instruction. Specific forms of dyslexia include phonological or deep dyslexia — an inability to rapidly associate letters to language sounds (grapheme-phoneme matching) — and surface dyslexia — an inability to identify word forms. Dyslexics can suffer from one or both of these conditions, and to varying degrees over time.
Strictly speaking, a diagnosis of dyslexia requires that the subject have no other specific or global disability that might otherwise account for the inability to read (e.g., visual impairment or general learning disability). This is because dyslexia is related to developmental disruption in brain areas that are specifically appropriated for subprocesses necessary in text decoding, such as rapid letter-sound matching or recognition of sight words. On the other hand, dyslexia often correlates with related conditions, such as language-sound processing deficits or rapid automatized naming deficits, and possibly has a complex causative relationship to them. But these are not specifically related to the decoding of texts and do not qualify as reading disability per se.
To make things more confusing, a behavioral deficit does not necessarily imply an inherent neurological dysfunction, and neither do brain scans indicating lack of activity in decoding-related areas. Lack of neural activity may be a symptom rather than the cause of dyslexia, as I will explain. Theories, and the research that enables them, are numerous and varied. In spite of claims by some experts promoting a particular theory, a definitive definition of dyslexia is not yet in hand.
For the time being, it is important to make a difference between true developmental dyslexia, as described above, and "pseudo dyslexia." True developmental dyslexics, as noted, demonstrate an inability to develop decoding skills in spite of effective reading instruction and in the absence of any other explanatory cause. By contrast, pseudo dyslexics are typically children who possess the ability to learn to decode texts but either did not receive effective instruction in school or had not yet reached an optimal developmental stage for making use of that instruction (longitudinal studies suggest that 25% or more of putatively dyslexic children identified in early elementary grades can self-remediate without intervention within two years). In other words, pseudo dyslexics are cases of misdiagnosis.
Arguably, when dyslexia is defined loosely, upwards of 75% of students labeled dyslexic may be pseudo dyslexic. The good news is that such "dyslexics" can be easily cured with garden variety but intensively provided reading instruction. (The added intensity is stressed because such students have fallen behind and need to do more than just develop the ability to decode — they may also be expected to catch up to their grade level.) It is worth suggesting, however, that it would be more efficient and less costly for the schools if these students had enjoyed effective, developmentally appropriate instruction to begin with.
It should not be assumed that a child has had access to effective reading instruction from a credentialed and well-trained teacher simply because the child has attended school. To a greater degree than most realize, classrooms are at times headed by teachers lacking teacher training from an accredited institution who are hired provisionally to fill gaps in a school's staffing due to a lack of credentialed job applicants. This is especially true in high poverty school districts in the inner cities and in under-populated rural areas. Such "temps," though sincerely concerned for their students' well being, typically have no formal understanding of how to teach, let alone how to teach something as complex as reading, let alone to a class of students at-risk for reading failure, as students in high poverty schools tend to be.
But even certified teachers can be stymied in providing effective reading instruction when the student is not yet developmentally ready for such instruction. Students are not simple blank slates. If the neuroscience research teaches us anything, it is that learning is literally a neurological growth process. Reading requires a preliminary level of cognitive development that allows for symbol identification, manipulation, and cross-association (among other things). As with just about any other biological attribute one might care to measure, rate of development demonstrates a normal distribution of variance in general populations.
Tracking age cohorts with the unwarranted expectation that all students should be at the same developmental level unreasonably misdiagnoses the bottom tail of performance as a deficiency, when, in many cases, it may only be early stage mastery. People vary in their rate of development. Some infants are born early, some late; some reach puberty, adult maturity, or middle age early, others late; some die early, some late; and these differences are not only by chance. Such trajectories run in families. Hereditable characteristics suggest a role for genetics in developmental difference, but deficiency requires an institutionally selected cut-score. Using cut-scores for ability relative to near-age peers as a required benchmark of deficiency may arguably lack validity in many cases.
Although the existence of what I here term pseudo dyslexics has been recently acknowledged by dyslexia researchers, earlier and more widely disseminated work had conflated true and pseudo dyslexics on the justification that both groups demonstrate similar lack of neural activation in brain scan studies. However, fMRI and other commonly employed brain scan methods cannot image the level of analysis required for what is, in the case of true dyslexics, an apparently genetic disorder. If genetics is the root cause of the disability, then dyslexia is a case of biochemical deficiency retarding or disrupting the development of neural circuitry in the brain areas typically recruited during efficient reading development. Disparities in activation of gross areas of brain anatomy, as indicated by fMRI, cannot distinguish such abnormal cell structures.
Moreover, given the molecular- and cellular-level source of the problem, the atypical activation of gross brain anatomy identified in brain scans is often only a symptomatic, not a causal, indicator of the disorder. Importantly, non-genetic causes, such as lack of effective or developmentally appropriate reading instruction, can also account for lack of development in essentially normal brain tissue, generating similar images indicating lack of activation. Carefully employing precise definitions should allow us to distinguish the difference. This is important because different causes require different forms of remediation.
Brain areas recruited for school skills such as reading are not hard-wired or developmentally inevitable. They necessarily require interaction with an appropriate environment to develop. Just because neural dysfunction can lead to lack of ability, it does not follow that lack of ability is always the result of neural dysfunction. (If your car is out of gas, it will not run; but if your car does not run, it is not necessarily out of gas.)
Precise definitions are also important for efficient administration of limited resources and the coherent formulation of effective governmental policy in regard to a disability. Unfortunately, the definition of dyslexia has undergone such egregious stretching over the past decade that remediation of our terminology may be in order. Enlarged definitions based on conflated categories lead to inflated estimates of the percentage of children who suffer dyslexia, with some dyslexia specialists quoting rates as high as 20—30% of the school-age population. (Three to five percent may be more likely.) Because these sweeping definitions include so many pseudo dyslexics, remediation success rates are also inflated. Such ill—focused statistics may grab headlines and garner research and remediation funding, but they make a mockery of the intellectual integrity required of scientifically based clinical practice.
Urgent calls for early assessment of dyslexia, and recommendations for institutionalized early intervention, need to be evaluated cautiously. If precipitous action is instituted on the basis of carelessly broad definitions, scarce funding will be dependably misdirected on specialized remediation for either non-problems (extended developmental time-course), or what are essentially political problems (insufficient numbers of trained reading instructors). Additionally, the impact of inappropriate deficiency labels on students' self-efficacy and future school success is also a concern.
It is probably not reasonable to label distribution-typical differences in developmental time-course a developmental disability. It certainly is reprehensible to label at-risk students dyslexic when they have been denied effective instruction, misdiagnosing what is clearly a resource and policy dysfunction as a neurological deficiency of the child. And dragnet-styled definitions are particularly unfair to those who, in fact, have dyslexia. True dyslexics will not respond to intensive but standard reading instruction but they can often respond to research-based compensatory instructional approaches and decoding strategies that take advantage of the strengths and resources they do possess.
http://www.interdys.org/ — The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping individuals with dyslexia, their families, and the communities that support them.
http://www.ninds.nih.gov — The mission of NINDS is to reduce the burden of neurological disease — a burden borne by every age group, by every segment of society, by people all over the world.
http://www.ldaamerica.org — Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA's) mission is to create opportunities for success for all individuals affected by learning disabilities and to reduce the incidence of learning disabilities in future generations.
http://www.coloradodyslexia.com — Dyslexia Institutes of America provides diagnostic and therapy centers for individuals 4.9 years old to adult living with Dyslexia.
http://www.dyslexia.com — Davis Dyslexia Association International
The Everything Parent's Guide to Children with Dyslexia; All You Need To Ensure Your Child's Success,
by Abigail Marshall (Paperback, 320 pages. Publisher: Adams Media 2004. ISBN: 1593371357).
The Gift of Dyslexia: Why Some of the Smartest People Can't Read and How They Can Learn, by Ronald D. Davis with Eldon M.Braun.(Perigee Books, Revised Edition, 1997)
37 COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF DYSLEXIA — Ronald D. Davis, Reading Research Council Dyslexia Correction Center in California
Most dyslexics will exhibit about 10 of the following traits and behaviors. These characteristics can vary from day-to-day or minute-to-minute. The most consistent thing about dyslexics is their inconsistency.
General
1. Appears bright, highly intelligent, and articulate but unable to read, write, or spell at grade level.
2. Labelled lazy, dumb, careless, immature, "not trying hard enough," or "behavior problem."
3. Isn't "behind enough" or "bad enough" to be helped in the school setting.
4. High in IQ, yet may not test well academically; tests well orally, but not written.
5. Feels dumb; has poor self-esteem; hides or covers up weaknesses with ingenious compensatory strategies; easily frustrated and emotional about school reading or testing.
6. Talented in art, drama, music, sports, mechanics, story-telling, sales, business, designing, building, or engineering.
7. Seems to "Zone out" or daydream often; gets lost easily or loses track of time.
8. Difficulty sustaining attention; seems "hyper" or "daydreamer."
9. Learns best through hands-on experience, demonstrations, experimentation, observation, and visual aids.
Vision, Reading, and Spelling
10. Complains of dizziness, headaches, or stomach aches while reading.
11. Confused by letters, numbers, words, sequences, or verbal explanations.
12. Reading or writing shows repetitions, additions, transpositions, omissions, substitutions, and reversals in letters, numbers, and/or words.
13. Complains of feeling or seeing non-existent movement while reading, writing, or copying.
14. Seems to have difficulty with vision, yet eye exams don't reveal a problem.
15. Extremely keen sighted and observant, or lacks depth perception and peripheral vision.
16. Reads and rereads with little comprehension.
17. Spells phonetically and inconsistently.
Hearing and Speech
18. Has extended hearing; hears things not said or apparent to others; easily distracted by sounds.
19. Difficulty putting thoughts into words; speaks in halting phrases; leaves sentences incomplete; stutters under stress; mispronounces long words, or transposes phrases, words, and syllables when speaking.
Writing and Motor Skills
20. Trouble with writing or copying; pencil grip is unusual; handwriting varies or is illegible.
21. Clumsy, uncoordinated, poor at ball or team sports; difficulties with fine and/or gross motor skills and tasks; prone to motion-sickness.
22. Can be ambidextrous, and often confuses left/right, over/under.
Math and Time Management
23. Has difficulty telling time, managing time, learning sequenced information or tasks, or being on time.
24. Computing math shows dependence on finger counting and other tricks; knows answers, but can't do it on paper.
25. Can count, but has difficulty counting objects and dealing with money.
26. Can do arithmetic, but fails word problems; cannot grasp algebra or higher math.
Memory and Cognition
27. Excellent long-term memory for experiences, locations, and faces.
28. Poor memory for sequences, facts, and information that has not been experienced.
29. Thinks primarily with images and feeling, not sounds or words (little internal dialogue).
Behavior, Health, Development and Personality
30. Extremely disorderly or compulsively orderly.
31. Can be class clown, trouble-maker, or too quiet.
32. Had unusually early or late developmental stages (talking, crawling, walking, tying shoes).
33. Prone to ear infections; sensitive to foods, additives, and chemical products.
34. Can be an extra deep or light sleeper; bedwetting beyond appropriate age.
35. Unusually high or low tolerance for pain.
36. Strong sense of justice; emotionally sensitive; strives for perfection.
37. Mistakes and symptoms increase dramatically with confusion, time pressure, emotional stress,
or poor health.
Reprinted with permission from the Davis Dyslexia Association International. (Copyright 1992)
Lone Tree, Colorado — October 6, 2004
Dyslexia Institutes of America announces the opening of it's diagnostic testing and therapy center for individuals living with Dyslexia. Founded by Dr. Elaine Jett in 1997, Dyslexia Institutes of America offers a battery of 11 diagnostic tests to determine what type of Dyslexia is present and level of severity of the Dyslexia.
Wendy Sorrentino, Owner of the Colorado clinic says, "Dyslexia is much more common than one may believe, and we offer an individualized, therapeutic approach not currently provided in the public schools, learning centers, or tutoring programs." The Dyslexia Institutes of America's method to dyslexia therapy has two parts: phonological and cognitive. Phonological therapy includes a structured, step-by-step program to enhance phonological awareness, and a phonic program that is multi-sensory, structured, and sequential for teaching reading and spelling. The second part of the clinic's therapy addresses the cognitive processing needs of the clients, and includes phonological memory, auditory and visual memory, visual-motor integration, and visual perception.
According to the International Dyslexia Association, "current studies suggest that 15—20% of the population has a reading disability. Of those, 85% has dyslexia. Dyslexia is prevalent in people of all backgrounds and intellectual levels. In addition, dyslexia runs in families; dyslexic parents are very likely to have children who are dyslexic. Some people are identified as dyslexic early in their lives, but for others their dyslexia goes unidentified until they get older. People who are very bright can be dyslexic. They are often gifted in areas that do not require strong language skills, such as art, computer science, design, drama, electronics, math, mechanics, music, physics, sales, and sports." Some common signs of dyslexia include difficulty learning common nursery rhymes, remembering letter names and sounds, writing letters of the alphabet, sounding out words, remembering sight words, remembering how to spell words, blending sounds together, and remembering phonic rules with multi-step instructions.
LONE TREE DYSLEXIA CENTER PUTS FUN BACK IN PHONICS — Peter Jones, Staff Writer Dyslexia Institute of America, 6880 South Yosemite Court #120, Centennial, CO 80112
In most contexts, Cher, Charles Schwab, and Tommy Hilfiger would have little in common, except perhaps fame and a good publicist. But they, like nearly one in five Americans, are thought to be dyslexic.
The cognitive disorder has become not just a well-known disability but a cultural reference point. Stand-up comics and an expert on the subject have suggested that President Bush has it. The disorder has spurred a host of treatments — and celebrations. Author Ron Davis has gone so far as to tout what he calls the "gift of dyslexia."
Lone Tree is home to the first franchise operation for Dyslexia Institutes of America, an umbrella organization founded by Dr. Elaine Jett, an Illinois-based special-education expert.
Educators Wendy and Rick Sorrentino moved from California to open the first of its kind center last October. Although the Jett model is not revolutionary, it is an approach that has a specialized nuance.
"A lot of programs treat phonics, reading, and spelling, which is great and wonderful. What our research has found is that dyslexics have issues other than learning how to read and write," Wendy said.
That is why DIA emphasizes cognitive therapies designed to strengthen visual and auditory memory, visual perception and motor skills. While that may be technical-speak, the process is based in simple logic, according to the married instructors.
"If we have a child we know has a memory issue, why would we not treat the memory issue and just treat the phonics?," Wendy said. "They're not going to remember what we said."
To avoid that prospect, the Sorrentinos help students to discover their own "compensatory skills," through memorization activities and games involving shapes, letters, and numbers.
"We'll say, 'Wow, you did such a great job. How did you remember this?,'" Wendy said of past sessions. "So (the student is) starting to think, 'Oh, well, I memorized them because I looked at them in my head and I created a pattern.' And we'll say, 'Wow, that's really cool. Could you do that in school?' And the bulb clicks."
A common sign of dyslexia— A child reporting that a teacher erased the blackboard before he could write down the information.
Dyslexia, the Jett program says, is the inability to read and spell relative to one's IQ. While that may sound like an over—generalized definition in search of generic symptoms, dyslexics have specific physiological distinctions, according much of the research.
"It is a medical condition. They can see lesions in the brain," Wendy said. The International Dyslexia Association calls the disorder "a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin."
Although some centers may offer programs as "exciting" for children as those exacting medical descriptions, Dyslexia Institutes of America has instead striven to put the "fun" back in phonics.
"I learn more here than I did at the other place," said 11-year-old Collin Rodocker, comparing DIA to another program he went through in Washington state. "We didn't do Parquetry or the computer stuff."
Parquetry Pals is the brand name for colored blocks that kids in the program form into shapes, based on diagrams they are given. Computer games test short-term memory skills. Four letters flash on the screen for less than a second. Collin quickly tries to retype them.
"When Collin was doing the Parquetry, you noticed his self-esteem and how excited he was," Rick pointed out. "If you say, 'Collin, go copy off the board,' it's not going to have the same reaction."
Such gamesmanship makes learning fun, according to the Centennial sixth-grader. He also has the added motivation of collecting tokens for his successful and earnest efforts. At the end of his individualized session, he can cash them in for rewards like Hot Wheels cars, a jump-rope, a snow cone maker, or candy bars.
The "positive reinforcements" help make up for spending time indoors with the Sorrentinos instead of going out to play with friends on a summer morning. That is the biggest downside to being dyslexic, according to Collin. It is a trade—off that is understood by the Sorrentinos, who have adopted DIA's reward system.
"To (my kids) it feels more familyish," said Collin's mom, Sue Rodocker, whose 9—year—old daughter, Katie, is also enrolled in the Lone Tree program. "It's not really institutional. It's like, they're going (here) just to have fun. Everywhere else, they do their thing, but they didn't make it fun for the kids."
What's more, according to Rodocker, other programs her family has tried have tended to discourage parental involvement, so there was little "homework" or practice with flashcards after dinner.
"They actually like to come here," the mother said of her two youngest children. "Here, they don't get pulled out of class for special tutoring, which can be embarrassing for them."
Dyslexia Institutes of America requires a six—month commitment from each student, though some have taken as much as three years to complete the program.
The Lone Tree operation has 25 clients, ranging in age from 5 to 45. The oldest student, whose dyslexia was untreated for decades, signed-up in order to pass a test he needs to further his career. DIA has 10 independently—owned operations across the country.
Although the term franchise may more connote french fries than phonics, the Sorrentino's insist their business is not a generic or corporate-oriented enterprise.
"As therapists, we try to add our own style, which makes it fun, first of all," Wendy explained.
"People think because its a franchise, its cookie-cutter, and its not. We have 55 to 65 different activities. It is individualized to each child."
Evaluations, however, are not made in—house. Results are instead sent to Jett's Illinois office for analysis. According to the Sorrentinos, this is more of a quality—control measure than an indication that local educators are not able to make their own evaluations. 'I like the extra hand to hold,'" Wendy said.
Such expert analysis has not dissuaded some from exploring alternative viewpoints. Rodocker is among those who view dyslexia as less a disability than an avenue for unusual life perception.
"Katie is a unique little girl," the mother said. "Some children are brought to earth and they know what their purpose is. This is kind of weird, but she does talk to angels. I think it has something to do with dyslexia."
It is an extracurricular viewpoint not advanced by DIA or the Sorrentinos. They say, however, that many dyslexics are of above-average intelligence and are, thus, often able to compensate for their challenges, even without a diagnosis or special education.
"In a way, I think its a gift," Rodocker added. "Both of (my children) think differently because they have had to struggle and they've had to find alternative ways to learn."
Reprinted with permission from the Dyslexia Institutes of America. (08/18/2005)
Hal and Marjorie Roberts have good reason to be concerned about children with dyslexia. They have two grandchildren with the condition.
Marjorie and Hal Robert answer questions after announcing the Roberts Academy at Florida Southern College in Lakeland on Friday.
The Robertses' grandchildren were fortunate. They enrolled in a special school in Atlanta that taught them how to compensate for their difficulty in reading. But the Robertses decided there needed to be a similar school here.
On Friday, Florida Southern College President Anne Kerr announced the Lakeland couple has donated $3.5 million, which will be used to create the Roberts Academy, a transitional school for intellectually gifted children with dyslexia.
The money will purchase and renovate two buildings that house the headquarters of the Florida United Methodist Conference, near the campus on MacDonald Street. The facility will contain the new academy, the Florida Southern Department of Education, the college's demonstration preschool and kindergarten, the Hollis-Hays Children's Library and the Roberts Center for Learning and Literacy, which trains teachers to identify learning difficulties, especially in reading and literacy.
The buildings are expected to be ready for their new use in August 2010.
In remarks delivered during a news conference on campus, Hal Roberts became emotional as he recounted how his granddaughter was teased because she could not read.
"She would cry on Mondays because she had to go to school," he said. "This will enable parents to understand their children and advocate for their children."
The Roberts Academy will be a full-day program offering reading, math, science, and other elementary-school- level subjects. Teachers will be trained in a special method of multisensory reading instruction that has proved successful in teaching dyslexics. The academy will also provide counseling, support and training programs for families.
The Robertses stressed the academy will be a transitional school, with children spending two or three years there and eventually returning to regular schools. The academy will start with one grade level, probably third grade, and add other grades each year.
"It's heartbreaking to hear parents ask, 'What can I do for my child?' You can't just say, 'Your child has dyslexia, goodbye,'" said Marjorie Roberts, who is a member of the FSC Board of Trustees.
Hal Roberts is a former city attorney for Lakeland and currently the chief executive of Earthlinked Technologies, which manufactures geothermal heat pumps. The Robertses had three children who are graduates of FSC.
Kerr said the academy will be a model for the teaching of dyslexic children.
Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability in which students experience difficulties with skills such as spelling, writing, and pronouncing words according to the International Dyslexia Association. As much as 20 percent of the population has some form of reading difficulty, and about 75 percent of those have symptoms of dyslexia. The cause is unknown, but students can be taught to compensate, and the condition tends to be coupled with high intelligence.
The Florida United Methodist Conference does not yet have a new location for its headquarters, which includes the office of Bishop Timothy Whitaker, but will remain in Lakeland.
A committee is looking at several properties, said the Rev. David McEntire, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Lakeland.
"We're just thrilled (Florida Southern) is growing," he said. "This could be a win-win situation."
Reprinted with permission from The Ledger. Published: Friday, October 31, 2008 . Last Modified: Saturday, November 1, 2008. [Cary McMullen can be reached at cary.mcmullen@theledger.com or 863-802-7509. Read his blog at religion.theledger.com.]
If you have dyslexia, it's hard to read, and it's nearly impossible to keep up in school.
That's why Nemours Children's Clinic Orlando is unveiling a pilot program aimed at helping preschoolers in Orlando with dyslexia and other reading disabilities ̬ before they head to elementary school.
Based on Nemours' 3-year-old BrightStart Dyslexia Initiative in Jacksonville, the pilot program will begin screening students today at Nap Ford Community School, a charter school in Orlando's Parramore neighborhood.
The team will roll into the Nap Ford parking lot in a bright-blue mobile classroom, where Nemours staffers will screen the school's pre-kindergarten students, looking for any signs of potential reading problems. Then the Nemours staff will teach the Nap Ford teachers how to boost reading skills for those children.
In Jacksonville, the same approach has yielded impressive results. In the 2005-06 school year, 69 percent of the children who participated in the program as 4-year-olds met the county's reading benchmarks by the end of kindergarten.
"As a research scientist, I can tell you the results are remarkable," said Laura Bailet, executive director of the Nemours BrightStart Initiative. "But there is no magic bullet. This takes hard work and diligence."
Nemours takes a different tack than other programs by screening children before they enter kindergarten. In addition, the team screens all the children at a preschool, not just children who are struggling.
"Dyslexia is pretty subtle," Bailet said. "Most children with dyslexia are quite bright, so it's easy to overlook kids who may have it."
In Jacksonville, the Nemours team sent its own teachers and mobile classrooms to preschools ̬ and then conducted 30-minute sessions with the children twice a week. In Orlando, the program will operate differently. At Nap Ford Community School, Nemours staffers will teach the preschool teacher and the children's parents strategies for helping the children.
By instructing teachers how to help students — instead of relying on the small Nemours staff — Bailet and her team hope to partner with other agencies to spread the BrightStart Initiative throughout Central Florida.
"Nemours really doesn't have the resources to solve dyslexia or childhood obesity alone," said Dr. David Bailey, Nemours president. "That's why we look for partners in the community."
At Nap Ford, Principal Jennifer Porter-Smith is excited to be part of the experiment.
"To be able to identify some of the precursors that lead to reading difficulties is exciting," she said. "But to have a plan for intervention that will help the children? That's the piece of the program that appeals to me."
Reprinted with permission from the Orlando Sentinel (October 7, 2008) Linda Shrieves can be reached at lshrieves@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5433.
House Bill 1223
H.B. 1223, also known as the "literacy challenges, including dyslexia" bill, was signed by Governor Ritter into law in May, 2008. This piece of legislation states that the Colorado Department of Education may provide "technical assistance and training concerning issues faced by students with literacy challenges, including dyslexia, to school districts, administrative units, residential treatment facilities, correctional facilities, and other local educational agencies." Furthermore, the bill states that such training must include awareness, assessment, identification, evidence-based progress monitoring, and scientifically based interventions and must be "consistent with a response to intervention model." Finally, it encourages the Department of Education to work closely with higher education programs to ensure that teachers are being armed with current best practices in remediating reading difficulties.
The bill had strong bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. Representative Michael Merrifield, the sponsor of the bill, stated, "Effectively addressing dyslexia is one of the keys to reaching Governor Ritter's goals of increasing the literacy rate and cutting our drop-out rate in half in the next 10 years. If we are serious about developing a well-educated workforce in Colorado for strong economic development in the 21st century, we must attend to the needs of our many dyslexic students."
Clearly, this has far-reaching implications for many of the students with whom we work. CDE has formed a Steering Committee, comprised of parents, representatives from higher education, special education administrators, practitioners, and CDE consultants. In this, Year One, the focus is developing awareness. To this end, the committee has developed a Fast Facts on dyslexia, which can be found on the CDE website at http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdesped/download/pdf/FF-Dyslexia.pdf.
For a complete copy of H.B. 1223, go to: http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/olls/sl2008a/sl_312.htm.
Deb Montgomery, Principal Consultant, Colorado Department of Education, Exceptional Student Leadership Unit
Kansas has experienced heightened debate over the identification and education of students with dyslexia in recent years. By the 2007-08 interim, the Legislative Educational Planning Committee heard testimony on the topic and requested that the Kansas Commissioner of Education meet with concerned parties to discuss the matter. This debate reached the Kansas Legislature during the subsequent 2008 Legislative Session, with the introduction of House Bill No. 2778, a bill that would require the State Board of Education and school districts to implement specific dyslexia testing, training, reporting, notice, and instructional provisions. Generally, proponents of HB 2778 stated that legislation is needed because educational needs of students with Dyslexia are being overlooked while opponents stated that the legislation is unnecessary as Dyslexia is already addressed by school districts, particularly as required by IDEA 2004, Section 504, and state law. The House Committee on Education held a hearing on the bill, but chose to sponsor a resolution to address Dyslexia rather than take action on HB 2778. Ultimately, House Resolution No. 6021, a resolution sponsored by the Committee on Education that urged the State Board of Education to study dyslexia, was adopted by the Kansas House of Representatives on April 3, 2008.
The resolution asks the Board to undertake a review of the screening and diagnostic assessments, research-based instructional strategies, and teacher preparation courses with regard to early identification and research-based instruction for children with reading disabilities, particularly Dyslexia. The Board heard public testimony and presentations from state department of education staff on this issue during the 2008-09 interim. As state lawmakers make their way back to the Capitol for the 2009 Kansas Legislative Session, they can anticipate hearing from the Kansas State Board of Education on the status of Dyslexia education services in Kansas. The resolution asks the Board to report to the Legislature at the beginning of the 2009 Legislative Session.
Elena D. Lincoln, Program Consultant, KSDE
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