Understanding Dyslexia and the New Missouri Law

By Karen Gniadek, PLPC

I clearly remember the day my daughter came home from school with a letter informing me that she had qualified for reading intervention. I was shocked and felt like a failure as a mother. After all, I was a stay-at-home mom and former special education teacher. I thought I had done everything right to set her up for success: I read to her from before birth on, took her on weekly trips to the library, exposed her educationally enriching experiences, and fostered her interests. How could this be happening?!
    
After only the first semester of first grade in reading intervention, my daughter’s teacher assured me that she had caught up and was working on grade level. And she did remain near grade level reading throughout school, yet I knew there were areas in which she was still struggling, including: memorizing math facts; spelling, reading out loud, test anxiety, and memorizing facts associated with history or science. I will admit that I often lacked compassion when working with her at home. I wanted to be patient and supportive, but was frustrated when couldn’t she recognize that a word she read two sentences before was the same word she was seeing now or that 6 x 8 = 48 (for goodness sake it rhymes). FYI - rhyming is something that dyslexics often struggle with.

The answer lies in dyslexia. The truth is that many parents and children do not realize that it is impacting them. Oftentimes, people develop compensatory skills which hide their weaknesses.

Dyslexia is defined as a learning disability in reading that is neurobiological in origin and affects phonetic (letter sound) recognition, word decoding, and spelling. In short, students will be disfluent readers who have difficulty applying the strategies necessary to sound out words. There is much more to dyslexia, but I will go into this more in another blog. It is estimated that 20% of the overall population has dyslexia at some level. Like most brain differences, the severity of dyslexia symptoms spans a continuum from mild to severe. Those most severely impacted are often identified in school and helped via the IEP or 504 process. Those moderately to mildly impacted oftentimes go undiagnosed and unserved. It is these students for whom the new Missouri dyslexia law hopes to help.
    
The law went into effect this school year, 2018-2019. It has three major components. The first component requires districts to screen all students in grades kindergarten through three for dyslexia. Students who via the screening are found to have delays in reading possibly related to dyslexia will be monitored for reading growth and should receive “reasonable accommodations” in the classroom. The final component mandates that all teachers receive two hours of professional development about dyslexia.
    
Notably missing from the law is a requirement for schools to offer specific dyslexia reading interventions. With that said, the final recommendations of the task force tasked with developing recommendations on how districts should implement this law put forth numerous recommendations on the best types of instruction to remediate those students fitting a dyslexic profile. The final recommendations of this task force were completed in October 2017 and can be found on Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s website. Districts have the freedom to choose which screening devices to use, who should screen the students, and how to accommodate and/or remediate students flagged as demonstrating characteristics of a reader struggling due to dyslexia.
    
What, then, is a parent or caregiver to do?

1. Be vigilant to information your district and local school will be sending home about dyslexia screening and results during the first quarter of this school year.
2. Keep in mind that a child who fails the initial screening is not diagnosed with dyslexia, he/she is simply making errors that indicate possible dyslexia.
3. Ask questions if your child is one that does not pass the screening. Again, schools should be publishing information to help parents understand the process, but kindly ask those in charge if you are confused.
4. Be aware that the law recommends that students initially found at risk for dyslexia may get more targeted follow-up assessment. Targeted follow-up assessment gives more detailed information and can be used to assess a child’s progress and response to any intervention given.
5. The results of this type of assessment can also help parents and teachers figure out what sort of accommodations may be helpful to the child. Concerned caregivers should educate themselves by reviewing the specifics of the law on the above mentioned DESE website. Parents can also explore websites sponsored by dyslexia experts such as Susan Barton’s Bright Solutions for Dyslexia, the International Dyslexia Association or Decoding Dyslexia Missouri.
6. Lastly, please be patient with your school and their staff. This is law and its requirements are new to all involved. There is sure to be confusion as it is implemented. ​

For information about how Unlimited Potential can conduct further assessments to determine the presence of dyslexia, please call our office.
Karen Gniadek is under the clinical supervision of Andrea Schramm, LPC (MO #2013041567)

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