I’ve always wondered about the diagnosis of dyslexia.  And, if you add to the pot, adults telling a child that they have trouble learning, does this lead to a child struggling more because they’ve been made to believe that there’s something wrong with them?  During my school days in the 50’s and 60’s I don’t remember a single kid in my class who couldn’t read.  Since those days, what do the experts say has happened?  In other words, why are there so many learning disabled kids nowadays?  Also, any time I would speak to my children, or for that matter anyone about a difficulty (whether or not I believe it myself) I would always say that they’d do very well at figuring it out.  By golly it works!

Apparently the law specifically mandates phonics instruction.  The lawmakers aren’t leaving any wiggle room for teachers to determine “appropriate educational interventions and teaching methods”.

Same in Ohio, where this was just signed into law on June 30.  http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3301.07  Look at paragraph M for the phonics mandate.

In other news, Mississippi lawmakers are taking a hard look at reading instruction: http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20130630/NEWS01/306300072/New-Mississippi-laws-set-take-effect-Monday

There’s a tidal wave sweeping the US.  It will take a few years to translate into improved outcomes.

Yesterday afternoon, I spent a hour or so chatting away at the local grocery store on the very topic under discussion. Bev, would be equally surprised as I was, that there is 16 dyslexic students sitting in one grade 6 class. I responded, “There is no way possible that all 16 students are dyslexic…..................because its poor reading instruction.”  The conversation continued around dyslexia, my experiences or rather the horror story trying to get help for my dyslexic child and the unlikely and very real possibility, that my 18 year old would not be presently checking out her new digs, spending a week exploring the university and the city, if I did not intercede when I did.

Malkin is correct in her assertions that the assumption that optimum teaching is already taking place in the primary grades.

I do understand where Beth Ravelli is coming from, and to seek out what should be normal practice in any school, the needed legislation to enact in law to screen all children for dyslexia and other reading disabilities.

Screening is an important tool to have, but it only determines if a child is having reading difficulties, and not if a child is dyslexic. To identified dyslexic, it requires a full assessment, and its where the difficulties lie for children to received a full assessment in the school environment, regardless of country one is in.  So in the end, the best and most effective and cost measure, would be to provide quality reading instruction for one and all in the primary grades, backed by constant assessing the reading skills of the primary students and all teachers from K to 8, well-trained and knowledgeable on dyslexia.

Why dyslexia?  Why not another disability?  For the simple reason, that dyslexia the core difficulties are with reading, writing and spelling. A teacher that has the knowledge and expertise regarding dyslexia will also have the expertise to put all the children in his or her classroom on the road to grow academically, where learning difficulties becomes mere bumps on the road, and not the mountains that they are today for students.

The senator states: ” “We have been working for years to improve the system for identifying students with reading disabilities and to provide the kind of learning environment that they need to grow academically.” 

Its a start, but as Tom has pointed out, teachers are not allowed the wiggled room as to the interventions and teaching methods. Its the process of the schools and school boards that cannot be trusted. It was obvious with my conversation in the grocery store, that the underlying processes has not change iota, even with the new screening processes put in place for primary students over 5 years ago.

What rang true with the parents of yesterday’s conversation will ring true today in this post. Its the 21st century guys, and not the 19th century. Children should NOT be educated according to the 19th century ways, in the 21st century.

But that doesn’t mean the education establishment has to tossed out the baby, along with the bathtub concerning 19th century knowledge. Its evident that the education establishment have been cherry-picking, carefully eschewing 20th and 21st century knowledge and advances in reading instruction. Or otherwise in 2013, there would not be the reality of 16 grade six students being labeled dyslexic because the classroom teacher has declared it to be. Meanwhile across Canada, the true dyslexics continues to go undetected and unidentified as if the young dyslexics are living in the 19th century.

One just has to peer into the data streams for confirmation. In my local area, the high school will officially have no formally identified LD high school students for the coming school year. The last one has just graduated, and its been a lonely journey for her since grade 9, but she certainly can tell you the students that should have had assessments to determined the reading difficulties but never received them. The education establishment is quite content to imposed their dumb labels, using the 19th century knowledge based on difficulties in reading, writing and spelling.

Then the education establishment is not content, but takes the further measure by telling parents they are liars concerning their own experiences of schooling. I too never remember a single kid throughout K to 12, that did not have a solid basic foundation in reading, writing and arithmetic in the 1960s. In 2013, the education establishment are trying to convinced parents that they do not have the skills and abilities to teach their children the basic grade one math, because the parents have all been taught wrong. The latter shows in the dismal outcomes in math achievement, but that is another story for another day where the education establishment tossed out the baby, the bathtub and has locked the door to prevent the baby and the bathtub from entering.