Absence
So, It's been a while since I wrote anything for this blog. For several months there I was very busy. I joined Stand For Children as an advocate for the new literacy bill that was being written, I was writing things to the legislature to get the literacy bill passed, and we did.
What I Wrote
The First One
I wrote and shared this in several meetings with legislators in the ramp-up to the bill going to the Education Committee. And I submitted it as testimony. I intended to speak at the first hearing, but they decided not to have public comment.
Hello, thank you for your time.
My name is Anna Ingram and I am a Eugene 4J parent, but I am also part of the dissemination team for the National Center on Improving Literacy at the U of O.
My son’s reading disability story is long, but I’ll try to be brief.
I was concerned about my son’s reading instruction starting in Kindergarten because his teacher told us that the class would study letters as they came up organically.
When he was struggling in first grade his teacher gave me a list of 200 common words that she wanted him to memorize. I knew this wasn’t how kids learn to read, but we tried it anyway. The school did NOT provide him with extra help. They told us that he would catch up, he was fine, and one day it would just click.
When I told his second-grade teacher that I was concerned about his reading, she said he was doing fine and would catch up. Since the school wasn’t concerned we decided to have him assessed privately for a disability.
My son was diagnosed with suspected dyslexia. He started the 3rd grade reading 18 words a minute with 80 being the goal. He didn’t understand that you write letters from left to right on the same line to form words. He was in the THIRD grade. Recommended tips for reading unknown words? look at the picture, guess from the first letter, or figure it out based on context. These practices are known to confuse kids and make learning to read harder. Actually sounding out the letters in the word was not recommended.
We finally got IEP Services but he still did not receive evidence-based instruction. He's learned to read because I shell out thousands of dollars a year to have him tutored with explicit, systematic instruction.
I’ve worked with reading researchers at the U of O for almost 20 years. I KNOW what good instruction looks like but I couldn’t get my son the support he needed. What happens to families who can’t pay for private evaluations or tutors or who don’t have time to advocate - because it’s nearly a full-time job?
This is a question of equity. Students with invisible disabilities should be part of the equity conversation.
There has to be systematic statewide change because my son’s story is NOT unique.
While I don’t believe that this bill will fix all of our problems, It is a place to start. It has many of the pieces that have been successful in other states. We need to pass this bill and make sure districts are on board so we can give all kids the chance that my son never had.
The Second One
After they wrote some amendments to the bill, they did end up having public comment and I signed up to do that. The committee went way over time and cut all public comments down to 1 minute. I did the best I could in the moment but did become emotional. You can watch it or read it.
My name is Anna Ingram. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I am the parent of a child with a reading disability, but I have also worked with reading researchers from the UofO for nearly 20 years.
I support this bill because I believe all children have the right to learn to read. For most children, that means explicit, systematic, instruction.
It took 2 full years of complete reading failure and an evaluation for reading disabilities to get my son help at school. He received so little instruction in kindergarten that we didn’t know he was a struggling reader until first grade. And yet, with a poor curriculum and lack of evidence-based instruction, my son continued to fail while getting no support at school.
My son was diagnosed with suspected dyslexia and anxiety related to reading the summer before 3rd grade, but it took the first 3 months of that year to get him any services. I thought that once he was identified with a disability that everything would get better. It did not.
I try very hard not to think about the what if’s in my son’s life. What if I had pushed harder to get help sooner? What if he had received evidence-based instruction? Mostly I ask why he wasn’t given that chance to succeed in the earliest grades.
He has a reading disability, but he is also a curriculum casualty of our faulty system.
The legacy of poor reading curriculums and instruction for my son are
The years it took to reduce his fear and trauma about reading.
The years of lost electives so he can have a class for extended work time.
The accommodations in his IEP that are rarely met.
The thousands of dollars and time spent on tutoring in explicit, systematic reading instruction for the last 8 years.
And the extra time and effort he has to put into reading and writing compared to his peers.
My family has the time and resources to help my son succeed, But there are so many families who can’t pay for private evaluations or tutors, and who don’t have the time to advocate. There has to be systematic statewide change because my son’s story is NOT unique.
This bill is a first step to giving kids the chance that my son never had.
And Then
In addition to all that, I was also attending meetings with 4j leadership. As part of that, I asked my son some questions about his experiences. This is what he wanted to say: