Dyslexia legislation will help young students

Imagine the frustration of learning to read, but the words and letters on the page seem to flip themselves for no reason, maybe they float and become wavy as you try to follow along.

One in every five people suffer from dyslexia, a language-based learning disability which affects people’s ability to read, write, and other basic language skills.

For something that affects 20% of the population, you would think that screening for dyslexia would be a common practice in the early stages of education, but it hasn’t been – until now.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed into law House Bill 731, which establishes provisions regarding certain dyslexia interventions.

This bill will provide roughly $100,000 statewide for educators to use for dyslexia screening for students K-grade 5, as well as for training for educators to recognize the signs of the disability.

Kellogg School District Superintendent Lance Pearson is thrilled by the passing of the legislation and is anxious to see how his district can utilize the new resources.

“House Bill 731 calls on the Idaho State Department of Education to ‘identify reliable, valid, evidence-based screening tools and intervention practices to evaluate the literacy skills of students enrolled in kindergarten through grade 5 for characteristics of dyslexia and shall provide professional development in multisensory-structured literacy approaches,” explained Pearson. “We will be waiting patiently as the Idaho State Department of Education unpacks this law and passes on the guidance and interpretation on how to appropriately enact them.”

Pearson believes that as part of the resources that will be allocated, the district will receive an instrument that will help with the screening process.

This instrument will be vital in the screening of early learners.

“We will use this by including this screening instrument in the multitude of instruments already in use to help identify students with reading difficulties in our K-5 population,” Pearson said. “We have incredible confidence in the professional abilities of our classroom, title, and special education teachers to identify these struggling readers, diagnose the issue and prescribe the appropriate interventions.”

While this legislation is a win for the students of Idaho, for those students beyond grade 5, getting them retroactively screened may require some hurdles to be cleared.

“There does not seem to be a provision that includes retroactively screening older students,” Pearson said. “But in the event a student is struggling in the Kellogg School District, we will employ all resources available to us.”

The legislation will go into effect beginning during the 2022/23 school year.