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Education Dive
3 ways educators nationwide are working to disrupt dyslexia
A number of states and districts are embracing more research- and
science-based approaches to literacy instruction amid growing awareness
of the reading disability.
Lauren Barack
June 19, 2019
Arkansas is working to provide support for students with dyslexia
through efforts to retrain teachers and change the way reading
instruction is delivered, with a focus on methods based on the science
of how students learn to read.
That shift to change how reading instruction is served isn't happening
in every state, however, despite dyslexia affecting one in 10 people
worldwide, according to a 2014 report from Dyslexia International. In
some cases, parents say they can’t even use the word when speaking with
their child’s school, Nancy Duggan, executive director of Decoding
Dyslexia Massachusetts, told Education Dive.
Duggan has heard from parents who meet with special education teachers,
hearing educators and others at schools react when parents say “the 'D'
word,” she said. “A parent told me, ‘We said it, and everyone took a
shift back.’”
But many districts, from Arkansas to Virginia and Maryland, feel
differently. There, lawmakers, district leaders and educators are
working to change how students are supported and disrupt the way
they've been taught to read.
Loudoun County Public Schools (Virginia)
In Virginia's Loudoun County Public Schools, a pilot using the
multi-sensory Orton-Gillingham structured language approach is making
its way not just to students who've been identified as dyslexic, but to
their peers, Lorraine Hightower, a certified dyslexia advocate and
consultant based in Lansdowne, Virginia, told Education Dive.
Orton-Gillingham is an approach that is steeped in phonics but
incorporates multiple inputs, from visual to tactile, in teaching
students to read. Facilitators first trained reading specialists and
special education teachers in the approach, which uses multiple methods
including visual and auditory keys.
“And now it’s expanded to the general ed, administrators and anyone who
would like to participate,” said Hightower, who is the former
chairwoman of the district’s Special Education Advisory Committee. “We
actually have general education teachers seeing significant results
with ELL students and neurotypical kids.”
St. Mary’s County Public Schools (Maryland)
A different approach is in play at St. Mary’s County Public Schools
(SMCPS) in Maryland. The state adopted guidance in 2016 that told
schools that they could actually start saying the word "dyslexia" while
also giving direction on how to identify it and support students
through instruction.
To that effect, SMCPS has adopted the Wilson Reading System, a
structured literacy program that is a “one-on-one intensive
intervention,” Laura Schultz, a state leader in Decoding Dyslexia
Maryland, told Education Dive.
Through the program, educators are being retrained in literacy
instruction, and while it's not a prevention framework, it is designed
to help students already struggling, Schultz said. Students receiving
the intervention are those with “…word-level deficits and intensive and
structured literacy instruction due to a language-based learning
disability, such as dyslexia,” wrote SMCPS in its 2018 Master Plan
Annual Update.
Hazen School District (Arkansas)
Arkansas has made statewide changes to shift the way it approaches
literacy instruction, Audie Alumbaugh, co-founder of the Arkansas
Dyslexia Support Group and a retired STEM Master Teacher in the
Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Central
Arkansas, told Education Dive.
The state is now using a structured literacy approach called the
Science of Reading, tying literacy instruction to how the brain
actually learns the written word, she said. “It’s kind of like the way
we teach math,” said Alumbaugh. “We teach numbers and number sense and
then how to manipulate numbers to get them to do things we need.”
The state’s General Assembly passed the Right to Read Act in 2017,
requiring all K-6 teachers and all K-12 special education teachers to
demonstrate their ability to use science-based reading instruction by
the 2021-22 school year. Some districts are moving faster, including
the Hazen School District, which has already had the Science of Reading
system in place for a couple of years, said Alumbaugh.
“It’s been so successful, they have had to let the special ed teacher
go because there weren’t enough special ed referrals,” she said.
To Alumbaugh, the time has come for educators — not just in Arkansas —
to stop blaming other causes for a child’s inability to read, such as
their lack of exposure to books before they start school. She believes
the real culprit for children who struggle is the way they’ve been
taught to read. For her, the shift to a science-based literacy approach
can’t happen fast enough.
"As educators, we always have an excuse as to why something can’t
happen,” she said. “It’s time for excuses to go away and science to
take its place.”
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