Dyslexia and Other Reading Difficulties

Yes. We have been screening students for years prior to E2SSB6162 and will continue to do so. The difference is students being specifically flagged for supports in their classrooms. Screening for reading skills is an essential part of intervention, dyslexia or otherwise. This practice will continue.

iReady Diagnostic and Literacy Tasks

Additional assessments may include:

• Kilpatrick's Phonological Awareness Screening Test
• Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing
• Benchmark Advance Foundational Screeners
• Phonics and Word Reading Survey
• Phonics Screener for Intervention (95% Group)
• Phonological Awareness Screener for Intervention (95% Group)
• Diagnostic Decoding Survey (Really Great Reading)
• and More

This is a lengthy question and answer, as we use lots of tools in MISD and we employ lots of strategies. "Research-based" means to be based in the research of the science of learning to read, evidence-based means that it is grounded in the effective evidence of the research. This science is settled science, meaning that it is robust enough that we know the required elements to teach students explicitly to ensure their ability to read. We also know that we must increase frequency and intensity through intervention, as necessary, to support any student who might be struggling with the learning to read process. To begin with, we use our Tier I curriculum in grades K-5 to support all students. This program has reading, oral language, and phonics. We also use a Tier I writing program which encompasses spelling, grammar, and writing. Both of these programs are research-based. All of our K-2 teachers, by the end of the 2020-2021 school year will have been trained in Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) and all of our 3-5 teachers will be trained by the end of the 23-24 school year. This professional learning provides teachers with more knowledge about the process and science of learning to read as well as a repertoire of strategies to employ. Of course, there is much more to say to this, but we'll keep it short enough to say that all of the materials we've selected for reading and writing in K-5 are grounded in the sciences of reading research.

Students who are flagged for E2SSB6162, and those who are simply flagged in our screeners otherwise, will be progress monitored using iReady literacy tasks. Additionally, depending on their intervention intensity and support, they may be progress monitored using other tools. 

False. Kids Lips was not designed for English Learners, though it can support them. Kid Lips focuses on the articulation and phonetics of the English phonemes. Could it potentially support EL students? Yes. Can it also support any student who struggles with the articulation of English phonemes? Yes. This program was developed by both Dr. Mary Dahlgren and Dr. Antonio Fierro, both of whom are National LETRS Contractors who work closely with authors Dr. Louisa Moats and Dr. Carol Tolman.

First, the assumption that curriculum is most important is incorrect. Teachers teach students, not curriculum. Curriculum is a tool by which we instruct. Investing in professional learning yields great rewards. The aforementioned curriculum/methodologies are all options for schools to use, and many of them are based on the science of reading research. Some of them have their own research development associated with impacts of their materials. The curriculum we use for reading, Benchmark Advance is a comprehensive curriculum that covers reading, phonics, and oral language, all based in the science of reading research. No one curriculum is best for students with dyslexia. What is best for all students, particularly those with dyslexia, is explicit instruction in the foundational reading structures. As teachers learn more about the specific deficits of students they can pull in supplemental resources or engage with strategies to support continued growth for these students. Should none of this make the appropriate progress, an evaluation for a 504 or special education may be considered.

No. These assessments are not psychological evaluations.

An ever-evolving site with resources will be developed. This will include books, articles, recordings of previous webinars, suggestions on how to support progress at home, guidance on how to understand assessment data, etc. This is being built, so you'll regularly see updates on this site, based on questions or concerns that are emerging from families. 

No. The bill is implemented in Fall 2021. We are building all of the structures and supports now, though we began engaging in training teachers in the 19-20 school year.

There are lots of topics we'll cover. Some of them are geared toward K-2 families and the recent Bill E2SSB6162, others are geared toward any family who might wish to support their learner at home. 

Districts do not have "experts" in all things, however, they have highly qualified individuals to support the work of the district. As we train our staff, we have one national trainer and five local trainers who are working with our teachers. Additionally, we have highly qualified psychologists, teachers, reading specialists, coaches, and other staff who support the training, assessment, and instruction process. 

Students are assessed on the iReady diagnostic and we get information in the following domains:

• Phonological Awareness:  a term used to describe many skills, all sound based. These skills include things like blending syllables or sounds, rhyming, or segmenting syllables or sounds. 
• Phonics: The relationship between the letters of a written language and the spoken sounds of the language. This begins with alphabetic principle, the idea that letters represent sounds. Laster this means decoding, which is when we use our understanding of letter-sound relationships to translate printed words to meaningful speech.
• High Frequency Words: Words that appear most often in text. Words assessed and taught in the i-Ready Diagnostic and Personalized Instruction are drawn from the Dolch Basic Word List (Dolch, 1941), the Fry Instant Word List (Fry, 1999), and the Educator’s Word Frequency Guide (Zeno et al., 1995). 
• Vocabulary: Vocabulary is the name for the words a student knows. The more words a student knows, the easier it is to understand what the student reads. Good readers know the meanings of many words. Students grow their vocabularies by hearing and reading new words, talking about words, and being taught specific words.
• Comprehension (both informational and narrative): This score reflects a student’s overall reading comprehension proficiency across both Comprehension domains included on the Diagnostic.

We also assess students in Rapid Automatized Naming. This tool is intended to be a check of whether or not a student may have difficulty in reading text. This tool is not something taught toward, but is an array of items that should be familiar to the student, to mirror the idea of reading. It helps us know if there is a difficulty in processing, which will likely impede the ability to read. 

• Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz
• The Dyslexic Advantage by Brock Eide
• Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf
• Uncovering the Logic of English by Denise Eide

Parent Audience

• Preparing for Your First School Meeting
• Talking with Your Child About Dyslexia   
• Developing a Foundation for Reading
• Florida Center for Reading Research: For Families

Student Audience

• On Being Dyslexic
• Advice for the College Student
• Young People's Books about Dyslexia
• Tips From Students

• Early Warning Signs
• The Big Picture: Rethinking Dylexia (HBO Documentary)
• Recommended Books
• Reading 101:  A Guide for Parents
• Ten Things to Help Your Struggling Reader

• Language Development Birth to Three
• At Home Activities
• Brain Development Basics
• HOW You Read to a Child Is Important
• Developing a Foundation for Reading
• Route to Reading

First, and foremost, the best thing you can do for your child is read with, for and to your child at home. There is no replacement to this in the foundational years, but modeling reading skills for pleasure is something all children deserve to see. 

If you are seeking ways to engage with your child at home, based on a domain or more of weakness, first connect with the classroom teacher. Here are some other good resources that you can explore: 

Phonological Awareness Games at Home:

• 6 Easy Phonemic Awareness Activities You Can Do From Home
• 10 Activities to Growth Your Child's Phonological Awareness
• 8 Easy Phonemic Awareness Activities

Phonics Activities at Home: an important element here is that students have access to text that is both accessible to them and at their level. To access text, students must be able to decode the words. This text can be read with parents or independently. Students still need access to grade level text as well, even if they cannot decode it. A way to do this is to read to your child or provide audio text to your child. 

• Phonics and Decoding for First Grade, Second Grade
• Fun Free Phonics at Home
• Phonics at Home

High Frequency Words: Speak to your child's teacher to learn what words are being focused on in school and use that as your guide. Practice these words at home. 

Vocabulary: Speak to your child's teacher to learn what words are being focused on in school and use that as your guide. Practice these words at home. Use them in different contexts, if they have multiple meanings. 

• Vocabulary at Home
• Building Vocabulary

Comprehension: Read a variety of text at home with your child, allowing him/her/them to choose interest areas and expand on them. When you are reading with your child, model the following metacognitive skills--

• Questioning the author or the characters
• Summarizing what was read
• Connecting to background knowledge
• Clarifying when confused
• Re-reading for understanding

Though it may feel silly to "think-aloud", reading is such an internal behavior, that kids will never know what good readers do, unless we model it!

Screeners are designed to be predictors or “flags” that a student may currently or later have difficulty in reading development. It is important to emphasize that these tools do not diagnose a child with dyslexia or other reading disabilities. Rather, they will tell us that a child has areas of need and we intend to fill those needs with instruction and intervention. 

The screening tool that we use is a very well-known and much used product, iReady. It is on the list of recommended screening tools that was reviewed by the Washington State Dyslexia Advisory Council. Between this assessment and our other assessment tools, we will be assessing students in these domains:

• Phonological Awareness- This skill is the foundation of learning to read and begins developing at birth. Children begin to recognize the sounds of their home language from others in the first several months of life. This progresses and students become more attuned to the specific phonemes (smallest speech sounds).
• Phonemic Awareness- This is a skill that falls under the broader umbrella of phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to understand that spoken words are made up of individual sounds called phonemes. 
• Rapid Naming Skills- This is the ability to quickly name aloud a series of familiar items (numbers, letters or objects) on a page. 
• Letter Sound Knowledge- This skill is the awareness of the sound a letter makes. For example, “s” says /s/, “n” says /n/, etc. 

All students are screened using our benchmarking process three times a year in September/October, January/February, and May/June. The layer of dyslexia screening will align with those benchmarks, as that is when the data is gathered. 

Kindergarten Students: When a student enters kindergarten, he/she/they may be in a very different place with reading development than their peers. As a result, the dyslexia screening will be completed in the second benchmarking window in January/February, to allow students to acquire the skills of being a student and develop some of the foundations for assessment to flag students appropriately. In any kindergarten classroom in the nation, if we were to use data in September, many more students would flag than actually need additional interventions, by nature of reading development. This is in alignment with the recommendations from the research and the Washington State Dyslexia Advisory Council. Here’s what to expect this year:

1. Benchmark screening in September/October, used primarily for instructional purposes
2. Ongoing instruction and appropriate interventions for all during and between benchmarking periods.
3. Benchmark screening in January/February, used for instructional purposes and to determine areas of weakness associated with dyslexia.
4. If your child has been flagged, you will receive additional information after that benchmarking period has concluded and data has been reviewed. If your child was not flagged, you will not receive additional information beyond regular teacher communications. 
5. Ongoing instruction, progress monitoring and appropriate interventions for all during and between benchmarking periods.
6. Benchmark screening in May/June, used for instructional purposes and to determine areas of weakness associated with dyslexia. This point will allow us to determine if a child continues to need any additional intervention and support. 

First and Second Grade Students:

Students in first or second grade will be flagged, if needed, in the first round of benchmarking in September/October. These students have already had a year of school and have developed further into the phases of reading development to allow us to more accurately identify students who need support. Many of these students may already be receiving additional supports, as this process is not entirely new to MISD. 

1. Benchmark screening in September/October, used for instructional purposes and to determine areas of weakness associated with dyslexia.
2. If your child has been flagged, you will receive additional information after that benchmarking period has concluded and data has been reviewed. If your child was not flagged, you will not receive additional information beyond regular teacher communications. 
3. Ongoing instruction, progress monitoring and appropriate interventions for all during and between benchmarking periods.
4. Benchmark screening in January/February, used for instructional purposes and to determine areas of weakness associated with dyslexia. This point will allow us to determine if a child continues to need any additional intervention and support. 
5. Ongoing instruction, progress monitoring and appropriate interventions for all during and between benchmarking periods.
6. Benchmark screening in May/June, used for instructional purposes and to determine areas of weakness associated with dyslexia. This point will allow us to determine if a child continues to need any additional intervention and support. 

Any student who continues to have data demonstrating areas of need will continue to receive those supports in the next school year. 

1. Beginning of School to mid-October: Screening of all students (kindergarten not screened until Winter)
2. Mid-October: Data review and additional assessments, as is appropriate.
3. Late October/early November: Parents notified if their child is identified for intentional supports through E2SSB6162
   1. If you do not recieve an email from Learning Services by November, then you can assume your child was NOT identified in this process. This does not mean that your child isn't getting intervention or supports, it simply means that their needs are not specific to this process.  
4. October- December: Classroom interventions and progress monitoring commences. Teachers communicate with families.
5. January- Screening period two commences (first screening for kindergarten)
6. Mid-February: Data review and additional assessments, as is appropriate, for any new students.
7. Late February: Parents notified if their child is newly identified for intentional supports through E2SSB6162
8. February-May: Classroom interventions and progress monitoring commences. Teachers communicate with families.
9. This process repeats for spring in May and June

Students receive support in tiers of need. This is often referred to as Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS). 

Within this, students are provided with instruction in one or multiple tiers, based on needs. Tier I instruction is instruction for all learners, and based in best practice and research. Most students will need only Tier I instruction, but some will need additional instruction, referred to as Tier II instruction. Tier II instruction is additional instruction that supports areas of need. In this case, that may look like small group intensive instruction within the classroom and may even have a partnership between a LAP, Title I or English Language Development (ELD) teacher and the classroom teacher for added support. Even still, for fewer students, there may be a need for more specialized supports and this is referred to as Tier III instruction. Tier III instruction assumes that students are still receiving the aforementioned instruction in their classroom, but also need something targeted and intensive that could be provided by an additional staff member such as a LAP, Title I, ELD, or special education teacher, depending on the student’s qualification for each of those services. 

Support and intervention can look different in lots of ways. For example, MISD has services through special education, Learning Assistance Program (LAP), and Title I that all support reading. Your child may already be receiving these supports, and that will not change unless he/she/they exhibit a need for change. If your child is not already receiving these supports, some may be considered (particularly LAP and Title I supports). That said, the specifics of E2SSB 6162 state that intervention should be occurring in the general education classroom whenever possible. This is our expectation, in addition to any other services a child may qualify for. For example, if your child is receiving LAP or Title I reading support or has an IEP for reading, his/her/their classroom teacher will also be proving interventions in the classroom to support his/her/their reading development. In our classrooms, teachers have access to phonics instructional materials that assume a skill-level approach to instruction. If a student is struggling, he/she/they should and will receive the instruction that is specific to their needs within that program. Teachers also have access to supplemental resources such as Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Curriculum, Kid Lips, 50 Nifty Activities, and Equipped for Reading Success. These materials, while good for all, will help support students’ particular areas of need as well. For example, the Heggerty materials can be applied in a small group intervention group using multisensory engagement to support growth in phonemic awareness. Teachers leverage tools like Kid Lips to support sound recognition and associated spelling patterns in words using a sound wall. Teachers have access to curriculum, but also tools such as grapheme tile boards, magnetic wands and chips, felt pieces, visual cue cards, etc. These tools are all embedded within regular instruction and will be used with more intensity and frequency for students who need them. 

The school district staff has been working on this since before the Bill was ever even passed into law, but teachers have been receiving intensive professional learning in this work, more specifically, since the passing of E2SSB 6162. Your child’s teacher is well-versed in instruction and the best first point of contact for any concern about your child’s reading or other learning development. Should your child be flagged, you will receive additional information from the District, and the teacher regarding what to expect and how your child is progressing. Should your child not progress, using our tools, we will consider the next steps and inform you of your options. That said, if you grow concerned about your child’s development, begin the conversation with your child’s teacher who is the expert in the trajectory of this development. 

As a parent, your primary concern is and always will be your child. You are the first teacher of your child and the most connected to your child’s experiences and inner-workings. As such, we want to engage you, as a community member in learning opportunities and conversations. Look for opportunities to be communicated and here, on the website, to support you in your child’s early education. This year, we hope that these will include:

• Book studies
• Webinars
• Asynchronous Videos
• Virtual Office Hours

While your child’s teacher is still the best first contact, we believe that a strong partnership between families and the school district is the best support for student learning. We look forward to partnering with you to support your child in his/her/their learning journey. Return to this site to learn more, as these structures are being built. 

Students are assessed on the iReady diagnostic and we get information in the following domains:

• Phonological Awareness:  a term used to describe many skills, all sound based. These skills include things like blending syllables or sounds, rhyming, or segmenting syllables or sounds. 
• Phonics: The relationship between the letters of a written language and the spoken sounds of the language. This begins with alphabetic principle, the idea that letters represent sounds. Laster this means decoding, which is when we use our understanding of letter-sound relationships to translate printed words to meaningful speech.
• High Frequency Words: Words that appear most often in text. Words assessed and taught in the i-Ready Diagnostic and Personalized Instruction are drawn from the Dolch Basic Word List (Dolch, 1941), the Fry Instant Word List (Fry, 1999), and the Educator’s Word Frequency Guide (Zeno et al., 1995). 
• Vocabulary: Vocabulary is the name for the words a student knows. The more words a student knows, the easier it is to understand what the student reads. Good readers know the meanings of many words. Students grow their vocabularies by hearing and reading new words, talking about words, and being taught specific words.
• Comprehension (both informational and narrative): This score reflects a student’s overall reading comprehension proficiency across both Comprehension domains included on the Diagnostic.

We also assess students in Rapid Automatized Naming. This tool is intended to be a check of whether or not a student may have difficulty in reading text. This tool is not something taught toward, but is an array of items that should be familiar to the student, to mirror the idea of reading. It helps us know if there is a difficulty in processing, which will likely impede the ability to read.