If you haven't checked out the Melissa & Lori Love Literacy podcast, I encourage you to add it to your rotation if you want to know more about how kids learn to read and how they should be taught how to read.
But right now, I'm focused on the latest episode! Holly Lane is such a wonderful advocate for good reading instruction and good science! Not only that, she is able to break things down in such a way that anyone can understand it - and we know that this is a problem in the world of research-to-practice.
I especially love how she breaks down the term evidence-based. So many people don't understand that just because something is evidence-based, doesn't mean that it's good! Often, the term evidence-based refers to how good the research design was, NOT how good the program is. Holly explains it better than I ever could, so I encourage you to listen where ever you get your podcasts or at this link to Episode 159: Back to School: Science of Reading or Snake Oil with Holly Lane.
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 tothink 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:
Or, I didn't mean it to be. I just have been thinking a lot about this quote:
"Special education students are often general education students first."
I have no idea who said that first, or even if it's a direct quote from anyone. What I do know is that when I see people argue against evidence-based, systematic reading instruction - and they do argue against it - often one of their talking points is that THOSE are the only students who need the heavy phonics drills and constant practice. Now, not addressing the "otherness" that people use for students who struggle and students who have disabilities...okay, I will address that briefly:
Sorry, I have to sidebar for this: You know people who believe in nurturing young readers with reading nooks and picture books to make happy learners are often the same people who do not beleive in the science of reading? They believe that you can make life-long lovers of reading if you just give them a comfy place to sit and interesting books to "read" (It's not really reading). These are also the same people who are just not concerned about the OTHER 20% (more like 40%), because they have a disability or a reading difficulty. They will say that THOSE kids are getting special education and so general education teachers don't need to be concerned about that.
I'm making sweeping generalizations here and I don't mean to sound anti-teacher. Teachers are only as good as what they know, and many are not taught in their teacher preparation programs how children actually learn to read. And school districts have NOT picked up the slack for this lack of education and understanding. Also, this has been going on in Teacher-Prep programs for decades, so it's self-purpetuating now. UGH.
And don't even get me started on using poor instructional practices in gen-ed and then expecting SPED to fix it!
But here's the key:
There are rarely students who come into school (kindergarten) with an IEP for a learning disability. (Some kids are going to come into school with an IEP - it's called something else in pre-k - already in place, generally, that's going to be students who are maybe in life skills classrooms or who have a visible disability. I can't speak to that experience because I'm just not familiar enough with it, so in this context, we are really talking about learning disabilities in reading, and in NO WAY do I want to diminish the struggles of the kids with other disabilities because when it comes down to the systems that hurt our kids, those systems are the same. That may be a conversation for another day.) And, there isn't really any reason that a student should come into K with an identified reading disability. So, that student is in the general education classroom. That student will stay in the general education classroom. If that student has no real behavioral concerns, they will simply slip through the cracks while they sit in the corner and look at the pictures in books while the teacher tells the parent that they will just get it one day.
UNLESS...unless all the students in the general education classroom are given evidence-based, cumulative, systematic instruction (or structured literacy, whatever you want to call it), AND that teacher has been trained in how children learn to read based on years of evidence from brain science and education research (among other things), AND that teacher continues to get high-quality professional development and coaching about and in the science of reading. AND that teacher has an administration in her building who ALSO understands how kids learn to read and supports her in her endeavor to get all her students reading.
THAT teacher, will see a student who continues to struggle even with high-quality instruction and can say, that child needs more help, let's put him in a smaller group, let's get him some additional instruction, let's give him more opportunities to respond. AND, if that doesn't work, she can say, let's talk about referring this child for an evaluation for special education. And let's actually have that referral in place by the beginning of first grade...and while we are at it, let's not wait! Let's go ahead and put that child in a one-on-one situation with a teacher, or a small group that is really going slow because they haven't reached mastery yet. Let's do that BEFORE the IEP is done!
This doesn't have to be so difficult!
I don't mean that this doesn't have to be difficult for that teacher or that student. This stuff IS difficult. It's hard to be a teacher and it's hard to be a student with a disability, but when you have teachers who are not trained appropriately, who are inadvertently doing more harm to students by using outdated methods to "teach" reading, that only makes it exponentially harder for everyone involved.
So it begs the question - WHY ARE WE STILL DOING IT THIS WAY?
There are so many free resources out there it's ridiculous. I was just looking at the OregonRTIi website and they have SO many great FREE resources!
Sidebar: don't get me started with the people who say RTI is a wait to fail model. It's NOT. It gets implemented that way in a lot of places, and they are doing it WRONG! Also feel free to check out MTSS which is very similar and doesn't have the baggage that RTI has (even though they are really similar). Again, I am specifically talking about RTI as a response to poor reading outcomes, not anything else that districts may be using Response to Intervention for. I'm looking at this strictly through the lense of how a response should happen if a child is struggling to read.
Resources
Professional Development does not have to be super expensive! There are loads of resources out there that are free or inexpensive.
Oregon RTIi
Video Recordings and Modules - So many great recordings from really knowledgeable presenters. Scroll down to the videos, but also don't miss the modules at the top!
The Science of Reading Professional Development Modules - Do you need to deliver some PD in your school or district? Don't know where to start with the Science of Reading? Oregon RTIi has already done the heavy lifting for you! From the website: "These slide decks are intended as a resource for school leaders who provide professional development for staff in the area of literacy."
I just listened to this today and I was so inspired by the people out there trying to solve this problem and coming at it from so many different lenses. Really great stuff here.
Okay, maybe that's a little extreme, but I didn't set out to do any of this. I mean, I graduated with a Creative Writing degree. It wasn't until I was a senior at West Virginia that I realized I should have done something a little more marketable - like marketing! I'm also a product of my generation, right? If the internet and website development had been a thing when I was in high school, my whole trajectory may have been different.
But it turns out that what I really wanted was balance (not balanced literacy, ACTUAL balance). I wanted to have a job that was just a job, make enough money to be comfortable, and be able to leave the job on Friday and not think about it for the weekend. It turns out that office jobs are sort of right up my alley. I worked in a job that I didn't really like for a number of years, but I enjoyed my coworkers so it was bearable. I was downsized in 2003 and I took the Oregon Reading First job because
I wanted some stability (I knew there was funding for at least 5 years), and
I had been planning my wedding and discovered that I had a bit of a knack for event planning.
I didn't know ANYTHING about reading, teaching reading, or reading research. I was just looking for a job.
Fortunately or unfortunately, my job wasn't the kind of thing that you left at the office. I traveled, I got calls after hours, and I worked lots of overtime. But as the years passed, I became invested. I listened to what the researchers and coaches were saying, I started to understand the data that they were looking at and I appreciated the passion that everyone had for helping kids learn to read.
Then, I moved on to the Reading Clinic where I spent a lot of time talking to parents - Parents who didn't know how to help their kids, parents who were desperate for help, and parents who needed a sympathetic ear. And as the years progressed and I spent more and more time reading reports and talking to our tutors and our grad students, I became more knowledgeable and more invested.
And then suddenly I was the one who didn't know how to help my son, I was a desperate parent, and I needed a sympathetic ear.
Why Am I Even Talking About This?
Because those of us who have been in the fight for years are battle weary. We're cynical and maybe just a little bitter. Some days the rage keeps us going. Some days, we feel righteous power...and some days we don't.
All I'm saying here is that sometimes we don't ask to be in the position we are in. And some days that position is more difficult than others.
This past week I found myself really feeling pulled in too many directions and it turns out that a lot of self-doubt crops up when I get pulled in too many directions...and maybe I just want to go watch my son play some basketball and have a little party and not think about the state of literacy in our country for a minute. We all have to take some time to recharge occasionally.
Advocacy is downright draining especially when there are emotions involved.😊
Not to worry, I'm already back at it. I am STILL an #accidentalliteracyadvocate
Editor Note: I started this back in December but never finished, so I'm finishing it now.
I'm Exhausted.
I know that I'm not alone and that my son has people who care about him and want him to do well, but it is really f-ing exhausting to keep hitting my head against the same wall. I've emailed my son's SPED teacher at least once a week asking questions, requesting help, and suggesting what needs to happen and I just don't understand why everything takes so much time!
You know what else I don't understand? This feeling that he needs to stand on his own two feet immediately. Like, why isn't he just advocating for himself? Well, gee, I don't know, maybe it's because he keeps hearing about "fairness" as in - it wouldn't be fair if you took the test in another room or for a second time, even though that's in his IEP. Maybe it's because he had a teacher in the 8th grade who told him that IEPs shouldn't be a thing and that he was just asking for special treatment.
Sidebar: I don't actually know what was said in that 8th-grade meeting with his teacher, I just know that he went in and advocated for himself and he came out screaming that he would never speak to that man again. The information about special treatment is what we were able to pull out of him.
Everyone is talking about the pandemic and the learning loss and the social-emotional impact on all students, so why are they not treating him like he's had learning loss and social-emotional impact from the pandemic? He isn't advocating for himself. Don't just say, you should advocate for yourself 16 year old who basically didn't have an 8th-grade year! Maybe start by reaching out to him. Build a relationship so he can have some trust in you! Say, "We want to teach you how to advocate for yourself. Here are some tools, and we will try to do this in a systematic way so that it's easier for you." Here is how to write an f-ing email!! Yeah, that's right, my kid will not read or write emails, so will someone at school please teach him some tools to do that?! Because me telling him and offering help is not WORKING!
In case you can't tell, December was HARD y'all. My son got a D+ in history (which he loves! He loves history! I'm not so sure about this particular class, but he does love history.) He got that D because he didn't complete a huge assignment in time and it was locked. He was told he could email it to the teacher before the term was over. So, he recorded an audio file with his thoughts on the assignment (which he has been allowed to do, but it hasn't really been defined specifically), but he had trouble attaching it to the email and then he tried linking it and whatever, the permissions were off and she couldn't listen to it. But she didn't let him know that until AFTER the term was over. She sent him a Google notification that she needed access after the last day of the term - but as I stated above with multiple exclamation points - HE DOESN'T READ HIS EMAIL!! So, she just didn't grade the assignment and gave him a D+. Now, I didn't figure this out until like 5 days later. Did she email me to tell me that this happened? Did she contact the SPED case manager to ask about this? Did she even mention this to my son when she saw him at the start of the new term? No...that would be a hard NO.
Fast Forward to this week, post break. We had an IEP meeting that felt, if not productive, at least validating. And we dropped Spanish and picked up American Sign Langauge (which they did in 1 day!). This is a load off our minds because I think Spanish was going to be a very heavy lift. So, that's where we are. We're still fighting, we're still working toward the teachers bridging that gap for him. Reaching out to him first so he maybe feels like someone cares.
Circling back to the title of this post - I'm with you, SPED Moms (and dads too, but in my experience, the dads don't feel it quite so viscerally), I'm here in solidarity with all of you. This is hard stuff. Lack of staff and lack of understanding in schools doesn't help. So - keep on keepin' on and know that you are not alone. 💪
So, I'm moving this blog to a website to make it a bit more dynamic and also more user-friendly.
This blog will still be up and running, but the web addresses will change slightly. Going to dyslexiaeugene.com will still get you to the right place, it just won't be THIS place.
I'm going to make the leap in a few days so hopefully, it goes smoothly!
If you haven't heard of Emily Hanford then you haven't been around the reading instruction/dyslexia world long enough. Emily Hanford is one of the reasons that the Science of Reading is such a big conversation right now. And...she's a fabulous journalist and weaver of stories. Not fictional stories, but the real horrifying truths about reading in the US.
You may have seen on my Educate Yourself page, the link to APM Reports. Originally, that was a link to the series Hard To Read and now it is also a link to Sold a Story. In fact, you can listen to a whole series of stories by Emily Hanford that will be enlightening, disturbing, and anger-inducing - whatever your emotion is, it will be provoked by these stories.
If you've been following Sold a Story, you may know where this is going.
I was 28 years old. I had a bachelor's degree in creative writing. I was about to get married. I was planning to start a family (as soon as my soon-to-be husband was out of the National Guard). And I knew absolutely NOTHING about teaching reading, how kids learned to read, or that there were different camps of belief in how to go about that teaching. It would be much later that I would connect my own slow, laborious reading with dyslexia.
It turned out that I didn't need to know any of those things to do my job. But as it happened, my job was really pretty much done once people were settled in their seats and listening to presenters. That meant I could sit down and listen if I wanted to as well. And I absorbed information as the years passed - listening to people like Anita Archer and Jan Hasbrouk talk about good instruction and assessment.
Sidebar: if you haven't ever heard Anita Archer speak, I encourage you to find some of her presentations online. She's wonderful. Here's a quick video that you can watch.
A shift, but still in the reading world
As Reading First (RF) started to implode nationally, I was on to thinking about having another baby, our first being born in 2006. The funding for RF was going to end and I was going to have to find another position. But, because I knew I was planning to get pregnant again, I didn't think I wanted to change departments. The director of ORFC was also changing positions. She was starting a little free reading clinic right there in our department and she needed an assistant. She told me that the job was mine. That it would not be challenging and I might even find it boring, but I could keep my .8 FTE Schedule. Since the first task was to build a website for the new clinic, I decided I was in.
So there I was, in 2008, helping to start a reading clinic that provided reading instruction one-on-one to students in Kindergarten through 5th grade. We did a soft launch with flyers in schools. We had more than 100 kids on our waitlist before we even got started. I think we started by serving 16 kids...I can't remember, but once we got going, we served 30 kids every term.
Originally the idea for this clinic was to bring kids up to grade level and send them on their way. We discovered in that first year that proving good instruction for 45 minutes a day, twice a week wasn't going to do it and we continued to have a growing waitlist even though we didn't advertise. So, we put a cap on it and served kids for up to 5 terms.
Maybe this should have been a glaring red flag to me that reading instruction was broken in our area, but remember, my only experiences with reading instruction was LITERALLY with the people who wrote the Direct Instruction programs that are talked about in Sold a Story.
I said nothing
By the time my oldest son was in kindergarten, I had a pretty good grasp on what good reading instruction looked like. He participated in the summer kindergarten readiness camp that our Reading Clinic put on and he was in one of the highest groups for the pre-k kiddos. Now I know that he was just really good at sounds in isolation, but that word level reading is very difficult for him.
So, when I went to curriculum night at his elementary school and the kinder teacher said, "I have a reading curriculum, but I don't use it. We learn letters organically." I was VERY suspect, but I remember looking around the room and watching all these moms just nod their heads and I was like...oooookaaaaayyyy? So, I said nothing. I continued to say nothing as my son spent kindergarten making belts and stitching bags. I think his sole reading experience in K was story time. At home, we read CONSTANTLY. He loved dinosaurs and lizards, alligators, snakes, and crocodiles. We would read him literal textbooks about lizards in the Northwest. But as kindergarten was coming to a close, we decided that we probably needed to do some reading instruction at home.
By this time, the reading clinic had shifted. We were hemoraging money because we were a free clinic, so as our funding dried up, so did our options. We moved the clinic out to the Bethel School District. Bethel supported this by providing food for the kids who stayed after school and bussing them home when tutoring was over. But what this meant for me, was that my son didn't have access to our wonderful Reading Clinic.
So, we did Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons which was recommended to me by my boss. And, because we understood the score at this point, we also did this with our 4 year old who was interested in anything that his brother got to do.
I had visions of a miraculous change in understanding how to read. Like some lightbulb would go off in his head, which is what they say in school you know, but obviously that didn't happen. This really brings us up to the rest of this story, which you can find in the Our Story section of this website.
In the trenches since the beginning
What I'm getting at, in my very longwinded way, is that I've LITERALLY been in the Reading Wars almost since they STARTED! And I didn't even start out with a kid who had dyslexia!
A funny little anicdote - several years ago as part of the National Center on Improving Litearcy, we went to Washington DC and had a Dyslexia Techncial Work Group gathering with some very big names in dyselxia and reading instruction (Jack Fletcher, Nadine Gaab, John Gabrieli to name-drop a few) and on the first day, I can't remember what the group was talking about but I expressed my opinion using my own experience with my son. Later, Dr. Gabrieli and I were chatting and he asked if I sought out the National Center or if it was just serendipitous that I happened to end up working to help give students better access to appropriate reading instruction. I told him it was a complete accident. #acidentalliteracyadvocate.
So, it turns out that it's REALLY hard to find a good Language Arts curriculum. The textbook publishing industry is a juggernaut and is bloated with cash and the want of more. In turn, they bloat their products with gimmicky things: lots of colors, pictures, manipulatives, puppets, and hopefully some decodable books somewhere in the mix.
Also, all programs are not created equal. It's important to check the evidence behind a program - but that is also difficult. There are a couple of websites out there that will give you decent information about curriculum, but many of them are difficult to navigate or the information is given without much context. Personally, I think that EdReports is the easiest to follow and understand - here is the Wit & Wisdom Entry - but to be fair, I don't actually know what the EdReports criteria is for reviewing things. Many programs don't even show up on the other websites (What Works Clearinghouse, NCII, Evidence for ESSA) because the criteria for review wasn't met. That means that the research wasn't done in such a way that it qualified for review. Also, I feel like EdReports provides opinions based on the research which is not what you'll find on those other websites. If you want to do your OWN research into curriculum, you can check out The Reading League's Curriculum Evaluation Tool.
All that, which sort of took me into the weeds a bit, is to say that you can have the BEST curriculum out there. Maybe it follows an amazing scope and sequence and the evidence is that kids learn to read at a greater rate than kids who are not getting what we will call Magical Program.
And here's your caveat...
But if you still have teachers who are telling kids to guess a word by looking at a picture, or to figure out the word from context, or to see if it "sounds right," then all the evidence in the world is not going to make that program work.
Evidence is only as good as the fidelity with which the program is implemented.
I cannot stress enough how important it is for teachers to STOP TELLING KIDS TO GUESS WORDS BASED ON PICTURES! It is harmful to EVERYONE, even the kids who do learn to read without proper instruction! Those kids who learn to read without proper instruction? Many of them will develop problems later - when they no longer have pictures and the words are more complex.
I'm cautiously optimistic about the implementation of Wit & Wisdom in our school district. It's a pretty good program and it does have a scope and sequence. It also builds upon prior knowledge which is very important.
What am I worried about with the implementation of the new Wit & Wisdom?
Off the top of my head:
Will there be continued coaching for teachers who are using the program?
Is the professional development deep enough and are teachers engaging in that professional development?
Will the district actually implement an MTSS-R system so that there is a process for what to do when a student IS NOT making progress?
Even Magical Program will not work for all students at the same rate. Students with dyslexia and other reading struggles will still require more intensive instruction.
Will schools continue to implement the program with fidelity through the upper grades? Ideally, putting a good Tier 1 program in place should stem the flow of kids into Tier 2 and Tier 3, but if you stop teaching reading after 2nd or 3rd grade because you've arbitrarily decided that that's when kids switch from learning to read to reading to learn, you're going to be right back where you started.
What about the kids we've already failed? What about my son who is still struggling with reading in high school and who NEVER learned to write well (dyselxia also impacts writing and organizing thoughts around writing). Are we going to implement anything for them?
I fear the answer to that last question is no. There is no time for my son to get all his credits in high school and take a remedial course in reading or writing. So I will continue to pay a tutor to help him with reading. I may have to find someone to help with his writing - but since I was a creative writing major and it's kind of my jam, I think I can help for the time being. But this assumes that he will actually let me help him.
I hate to end on a low note, but facts are facts. I am going to drop a few resources here to help with some understanding:
Not sure what I'm talking about when I discussed Tiers of Support? Check out this graphic (designed by the lovely people at the Lead for Literacy Center (L4L) and then polished into a graphic by yours truly (I am part of the Lead for Literacy dissemination team). You can read the brief that goes with the graphic too. L4L has a ton of really great resources for school, district, and state level leadership - because everyone from top to bottom should understand what good reading instruction looks like.
Lastly, the new NCIL Supporting Students with Dyslexia Toolkit. This houses Understanding Dyslexia as well as 4 brand new Toolkits and Tutorials. And here's a tip
Whispering: reading instruction for students with or at risk for dyslexia is good for ALL students. So, even though these things say "Dyslexia" everywhere, this information is really good information for all teachers and parents.
NO! It doesn't matter what you call it! But also, it totally does.
First, it's #DyselxiaAwarenessMonth so I'm not sure if this post is well-timed or ill-timed, but here it goes!
It turns out that nearly ALL kids can learn to read if you provide them with appropriate, evidence-based, systematic, cumulative instruction. It should include instruction in all the big ideas of beginning reading - phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
For some kids, this process will take little time. They will get it after just a little practice. But MOST kids - not just kids with dyslexia or a reading disability - need systematic instruction in the 5 big ideas.
Sidebar: I love this video from my friend Jess Surles. She can tell you better than I can, what effective instruction looks like:
All kids are going to learn to read at a different rate. Like I said above, some will pick it up like it's nothing and that's great, but not everyone can do that (in fact, MOST people can't). But what we DO know is that systematic, cumulative, instruction (that hopefully has an evidence base) is the best way (that we know of right now) to teach MOST kids to read (like, virtually anyone). Sorry for all the parenthetical phrases there, but I wanted to make sure that I was qualifying things - because it turns out that science is ever evolving and we should change practice as new evidence comes to light.
So, call it what you want - dyslexia, a specific learning disability in reading, struggling reader - if we were providing the appropriate instruction to all kids, the labels wouldn't matter so much.
I also think that some people find the word dyslexia to be a little scary. It's scary to think that your child has a disability and maybe it's easier to just use the term struggling reader.
So, all that being said, why do I believe that it's also totally important to use the word dyslexia?
Because when I told my son that the reason he couldn't read was that he had something called dyslexia which just meant that his brain was wired differently and it made connecting sounds to letters and words in print difficult, he was so relieved. He was relieved because he had spent years feeling like he was stupid; like he was incapable of doing this thing that all these other kids could do. Adults made him feel like he was supposed to be able to do this thing and instead of helping, they paired him with other students who couldn't read and told them to "read together" which of course, they couldn't do.
So suddenly he had confidence in himself. He felt like he could say, I have dyslexia. It's a brain difference that makes it hard for me to read. And you know, for the most part, people just accept that.
So, do we need to call it dyslexia? We shouldn't have to. We shouldn't have to pay a neuropsychologist to give us a diagnosis of dyslexia to get help for our kids. It's cost prohibitive for most people. And we shouldn't have to be in a situation where our kids have to have a word to apply to themselves because they haven't been taught to read. But...here we are. So, the answer is YES. It is so important that we #saydyslexia that we screen for dyslexia and that we provide intensive evidence-based instruction for kids who have dyslexia (but also any other reading struggle).
Did you know that October is Dyslexia Awareness Month? For those of us who see the struggles of our children, dyslexia awareness is every day, but it's always good to try and bring attention to this disability that affects around 15% of the population.
Every teacher needs training in how to teach based on the Science of Reading with deep dives into professional development in systematic, evidence-based reading instruction.
Every elementary school teacher should get training in LETRS or a similar program to help them understand what they need to do to teach reading. Programs in addition to LETRS are: The Reading League Online Academy, CORE Learning Accelerated Reading Achievement with the Science of Reading, AIM Institute for Learning & Research Pathways to Proficient Reading Course, The Center for Literacy and Learning has a couple of options for virtual coaching and online learning, The Big Dippers, EBLI For educators, and Keys to Literacy Keys to Beginning Reading PD course.
The state needs to get involved in Higher Ed Colleges of Education. They need to be teaching future teachers how to teach reading. It needs to happen NOW. Look to Eastern Oregon for a model.
Literacy priorities
That schools are NOT teaching our children to read. Just providing a list of evidence-based programs to choose from isn't enough. Teachers need systematic professional development to get them to STOP asking kids to guess words based on pictures and context. If the teacher continues to use strategies that are proven to not effectively teach most kids, even the most evidence-based program is not going to help.
Ongoing support is KEY. Literacy coaches should be funded, and they should have extensive knowledge in how to teach reading effectively.
As part of that ongoing support, providing PD around effective ways to use data to support students often gets pushed aside. Schools do the required screening, but if they are still looking at data in first grade and saying things like, "oh, he's fine, he'll catch up, so he doesn't need any help," that data is useless. Often data is collected but there are no tiers of support and that is how kids fall through the cracks.
Helpful strategies
Systematic, evidence-based instruction based on the 5 big ideas of beginning reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension), Instruction should be evidence-based, engaging, systematic, cumulative, and explicit.
Data-based decision making - using screening data to make sure that students who need additional instruction and intervention are actually getting it.
Tutoring or intensive intervention for students in middle school who lost so much in the last few years of elementary school.
What questions do you have for ODE about the Literacy Framework or revisions?
I want to know if schools and districts will get professional development around literacy and the Literacy Framework. Again, making changes to the literacy framework so that it aligns with best practices in teaching reading, isn't going to change anything at the school level unless PD is provided and ongoing support happens for ALL schools.
What else should we know about you and why you are invested in literacy education for Oregon's children?
My son was diagnosed with a specific learning disability in reading and writing just after the 2nd grade, but it took us 3 months after he started 3rd grade to get him any services. He never once met any of his goals on his IEP, and the ONLY reason he's ever learned to read is that I shell out thousands of dollars a year to have him tutored with instruction that aligns with the science. I didn't trust that the school would take care of him or help him and I was right.
It's that time of year again. When you get messages from the school about how excited they are for your kids to be back and all of the fantastic learning they have in store for the year.
Really, all it does is ratchet up my anxiety. Who will his teachers be? Will they understand dyslexia? Will they accommodate his disability? Do they have any idea what Universal Design for Learning is?
Sidebar: you should check out UDL, they are actually supposed to use it in the district, but I'm pretty sure that not one teacher has had any professional development around it.
Check out these pages for information about Universal Design:
Every year at this time I try to decide if I'm going to be "that mom." You know the one. The one who contacts all of the teachers for her 15-year-old child to tell them how they need to teach her child. Reminds them that he has an IEP and to save them time, adds all of his accommodations to the email, perhaps highlighting the few that are the most important for that particular class.
So far, I've only done this once. It was in the 6th grade and all the teachers I contacted responded with, "I already know that your kid has an IEP." And when I did it late in the year for 8th grade, the teacher completely focused on "need for praise" which got left in from elementary school and my son HATED it. He does not ever want people to praise him. He would rather float under the radar.
But this year, as he enters 10th grade, I feel like, I need to take that first step. I'll reach out to the teacher, provide the information, and let them know that he's working on self-advocacy, but he struggles with that when he is with unfamiliar teachers. He HATES to ask for help.
UPDATE: I did it! I sent messages to all of his teachers and I feel like I've gotten a pretty positive response. Today was the first day of school so we shall see how things progress. What to know what I said? Here's my email with names removed to protect the innocent or not-so-innocent.
My name is Anna Ingram and my son is in your [specific class name] class this fall. As you may know my son has an IEP for a Specific Learning Disability in reading and writing.
He is extremely bright and remembers nearly everything he hears. His listening comprehension is in the 96th percentile while his reading and written language skills have hovered in the single-digit percentiles. He still spells many things phonetically.
I wanted to reach out to you and highlight some of the accommodations that are most beneficial to him.
My son will also likely reach out, but he is still working on advocating for himself and will sometimes not ask questions when he doesn’t fully understand something. This is especially true when he’s unfamiliar with the teacher.
General Accommodations
Example of the finished product to help with the understanding of expectations.
Alternative assessment - Allow understanding to be demonstrated in different ways, like oral reports, posters, and video presentations. (For assignments where the goal is to make sure that content is understood rather than an assignment that is strictly about writing.)
Break assignments into more manageable "chunks"
Frequent comprehension check-ins, check his work to show understanding and that he knows how the start assignment
Some of this can be alleviated just by having clear directions that are bulleted and/or by someone going over all of the directions with him.
Opportunity to retake the test after demonstrating a relearn, option to test in the learning center
Preferential seating near instruction away from distractions
Extra time to complete assignments/assessments as negotiated with the teacher with full credit;
Option to have a teacher/EA read questions on tests or assignments
Reading and Writing
When applicable access to the second set of textbooks or access codes for online use at home
Access to technology for audiobooks, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and editing software.
Option to use the computer over handwriting in classes
Graphic organizer for writing assignments
Access to repeated adult (teacher or EA) editing assistance
Organizational
Access to class notes/slides (teacher/peer)
During note-taking, Garret can listen only then write down what he heard
Access to tech for organizational support
Access to digital copies of assignments and any resources that go home.
Thank you for your time and please feel free to reach out to me or his Case Manager if you have any questions or concerns.
I am a firm believer in encouraging strengths and building confidence. I think that is an excellent thing to do for your child especially if they are struggling with something. For example, we have ensured that our son has access to art and sword fighting classes. These are things he's interested in and doesn't have anything to do with reading - which is his struggle.
But I do not subscribe to the "dyslexia is a superpower" school of thought. Do I think that people with dyslexia think differently? Yes. Do I think that people with dyslexia may approach a problem in a unique and different way? Sure.
But I don't think that it's healthy or fair to tell people with dyslexia that they will turn out to be a billionaire or a professional athlete. People with dyslexia are not uber-intelligent. They can be, but just like anyone else, they can be of average intelligence or even below average intelligence.
And I really don't believe that it makes any sense to tell someone who struggles with reading that dyslexia is a "gift." Louisa Moats probably sums this up the best:
Let’s start with the claim that dyslexia – whether mild, moderate, or severe – is a “gift”. This assertion appears grounded in the observation that some people who have trouble learning to read, write, spell or use language become very successful in life. People who have real trouble remembering printed words are said to “see things differently” or have special cognitive powers. Our best science indicates, however, problem-solving and creative abilities are not more dominate because a person has dyslexia. People with dyslexia may be very good at mechanical problem solving, graphic arts, spatial navigation, athletics, or abstract reasoning – or they may not be.
People who succeed in spite of their academic learning difficulties are a marvel – but their talents exist separate from, not because of, their language-based reading, spelling, or writing problems. Those who experience dyslexia often experience anxiety and other affective challenges. We should not assert that dyslexia and giftedness go hand in hand, or that students are better off because they are afflicted with this condition.
See the whole article on the International Dyslexia Association website. And if you don't know who Louisa Moats is, definitely check out her writing (Teaching Reading IS Rocket Science)and presentations - Here is a recent presentation from the PaTTAN Literacy Symposium, but you can just put her name into the search bar on YouTube and there's a host of other options to check out.
The briefest explanation is that LETRS is a professional development program that helps teachers understand how children learn to read and the basics of how to teach foundational reading skills. Or if you want a more commercial definition, you can check out the Lexia Learning site for LETRS
How does this relate to Oregon? And specifically, Eugene, OR?
Decoding Dyslexia Oregon made a profound shift right after the 2019 NAEP report came out (this report basically says that only Mississippi children made any gains in learning to read by 4th grade), to focus on getting teachers trained in LETRS. This shift was from that focus on dyslexia to a focus on teaching all kids to read the way that all kids can learn to read. However, DDOR is mostly active in the Portland area and that's where the focus has been. Here in Eugene, not so much. There is a relatively young chapter of DDOR in the Eugene area, but I haven't been involved in most of that because it was just getting off the ground when COVID hit.
Slowly, the LETRS information has trickled into the ears of Eugene's teachers.
Did you know that Bethel School District has been aligned with the University of Oregon educational research community for decades? Most Bethel schools are teaching reading using evidence-based, systematic reading instruction. Or, they were the last time I knew anything about it which was maybe 5 years ago?
Did you know that 4j schools are so decentralized that they all do things completely differently? Some schools follow evidence-based instruction and some don't and even though they are all supposed to use the same language arts curriculum, some of them just don't use it. (Not that this is a big deal when your curriculum is kind of crappy to begin with)
Did you know that there are about 200 local teachers who are going through LETRS training?
Did you know that even though school districts could have used COVID money to pay to get their teachers trained, that the teachers getting LETRS training locally are getting it through funding from the United Way?
Why am I asking all of these questions? Possibly because I'm enraged that our largest local school district wouldn't fund such important training...possibly that I feel my question marks drip with sarcasm and disgust.
Thoughts about LETRS
Is LETRS the only option? It's absolutely not.
Is it the only option that people generally know about and will help increase teacher knowledge about evidence-based reading instruction? Yes.
Does something need to happen RIGHT NOW to help teachers teach kids how to read? Absolutely.
Is LETRS too expensive? Probably, but we have to start somewhere and this is what is readily available. Administrators have heard of it because Mississippi was the only state to make gains in reading and it's what they used.
Is LETRS a cure for what ails schools' ability to teach reading? Probably not? I think that you can't just provide LETRS training to teachers and expect that things will be magically fixed. There has to be a fundamental change at the district (or state) level. If the district doesn't think that they need to teach kids how to read (obviously district leaders wouldn't characterize it this way, but this is what it IS), all the LETRS training in the world isn't going to shift the needle.
However, is it a bad thing to inform teachers that perhaps they've been doing it wrong all along? NO! Please TAKE LETRS TRAINING if that is all that is available to you as a teacher. The more teachers in your district who are in the know, the more pressure that can be put on school boards and administrators to make giant shifts in the way that reading is taught in our schools! Because make no mistake, giant shifts NEED to happen so we don't continue to create a population that is semi-literate.
What are the other options?
I'm going to preface this by saying I really know nothing about any of these trainings. Some of them are going to be less intensive and some are more intensive. What I do know is that they are all (in relatively good faith, if with an eye to profit) trying to get evidence-based instructional practices into the hands of teachers. So, I'm not rating these things and I'm not putting them in any particular order. This is just informational.
CORE LearningAccelerated Reading Achievement with the Science of Reading
Fun fact: Carrie Beck who used to run the CTL Reading Clinic and who used to be the state level dyslexia specialist for Oregon is the Director of Literacy at CORE.
Fun fact: They put on a fabulous conference every year called Plain Talk about Literacy and Learning. It's in New Orleans and always attracts the big names in the science of reading community.
The Big Dippers This is a condensed course but is also inexpensive comparatively.
EBLI For educators, but also they have what I think are free resources for Parents
Keys to Literacy Keys to Beginning Reading PD course. I've heard good things.
Final Thoughts
Don't discount the free resources! Almost every one of those organizations above also has a host of free resources that can help you get started if you don't have funding or support from your district.
And then check out the website to sign up for Read Not Guess
This will help you help your child learn the appropriate way to read. It will help them either unlearn or mitigate the habit of guessing that is often taught in schools.
If your child has been taught to guess based on pictures or the first letter of a word, you should definitly sign up for this program to get your child on the right path to actually learn how to read.
So, I have a couple of opinions on this, so I'm just going to bullet a list and then I'll explain.
It totally depends on
Their age.
How your child reacts when you try to help them.
How far behind they are.
How motivated they are.
How knowledgeable you are.
How much time you have to devote to this.
Their Age
If your child is still young (pre-k to grade 1), there are a ton of activities you can do to help with reading. First and foremost? Read to him. Read together. Read picture books, and chapter books, and listen to novels together. Talk about the things that you are reading. If they don't understand one of the words, or if there is a difficult concept, stop reading and talk about it.
The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) has Student Center Activities that are broken out by grade level and skill. They even have a video series of how to do some of the activities with your kids at home. These are scripted and easy-to-follow lessons that are short, fun, and based on science.
When our son was young, I could help him, but as he got older and struggled even more he became very frustrated with me. In fairness to him though, I wasn't doing all the right things. I was maybe starting with things that were not the problem - like fluency. Fluency wasn't his problem. He was still struggling with connecting sounds to written letters.
So, if you have the money, my advice is to find a tutor. Someone who uses evidence-based practices and a good program. You can find information about local tutoring on the Local Resources Page. But in addition to that, look into Wilson Reading. You can ask them for a list of certified tutors in your state. Check the International Dyslexia Association for tutors. And, definitely consider the possibility of online tutoring. I wouldn't have considered it before COVID, but I think that people have really streamlined their practice and made it okay to do online instruction.
How Far Behind They Are
If your child is older and they are really struggling (like my son who was reading at a first grade level in third grade), try to get a tutor.
Barring that, because the cost is often a barrier - Tutoring is NOT cheap. Go back to the things under the first section here. Look at Florida Center for Reading Research and the IES-funded things that give you some systematic instructional practices.
How Motivated They Are
My son lacks serious motivation, so I mostly have to do the heavy lifting to get him the instruction he needs. If the motivation struggle is REAL in your house, try audiobooks! Audiobooks at least help develop vocabulary and cultivate that love of books that everyone likes to talk about. Maybe start with the Percy Jackson series. Did you know that Percy Jackson, the character, has dyslexia and ADHD? THAT is relatable!
Access Hoopla Digital and Overdrive which are free with your library card and have tons of audiobooks and ebooks.
How Knowledgeable You Are
Don't try to do more than you can. If you are not a teacher and you are overwhelmed by all the things that I'm talking about here, just read. Just, find a book and read it together. If you read all of it, that's fine, but read it out loud and talk about it together. This is a really wonderful way to encourage reading for understanding and seriously - every little bit helps. So, do what you can.
How Much Time You Have To Devote To This
Some days - read, most days - I'm exhausted from working and then I have to come home and make dinner, maybe I have to take someone to football practice, or to sword class. Some days I just don't have enough in me to deal with anything else. If your child is really struggling with reading, that can be a full-time job. But even just 5 minutes a night doing one of the FCRR activities or reading together, or listening to a book, these are all things that can contribute to better learning.
