Dyslexia
Learn more about students with dyslexia, their experiences in school, and ways teachers can help them
Special Education
The Pandemic Made It Harder to Spot Students With Disabilities. Now Schools Must Catch Up
After more than a year of disruption for all students, the pressure's on to find those in need of special education and provide services.
Reading & Literacy
5 Ways to Remotely Support Students With Dyslexia
The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the needs of students with dyslexia, but also made it more difficult to support them.
Special Education
Dyslexia Is Not a Bad Word, Advocates Say. Schools Should Use It
A push to get dyslexia defined in state law and persuade educators to use the term has translated to new laws in 40 states.
Reading & Literacy
Prominent Literacy Expert Denies Dyslexia Exists; Says to 'Shoot' Whoever Wrote Law on It
A group of teachers and literacy advocates are pushing back after Richard Allington, one of the country's most prominent experts on early literacy, made inflammatory claims about dyslexia at a Tennessee literacy conference this week.
Special Education
Letter to the Editor
There Is No 'Reading War'
To the Editor:
Education Week is a venue for the expression of opinions, such as Ms. Hood's, a "literacy expert," in the Opinion essay of Sept. 11, 2019 ("What the New Reading Wars Get Wrong"). She urges readers to clarify the term "reading" and points to a "war."
Education Week is a venue for the expression of opinions, such as Ms. Hood's, a "literacy expert," in the Opinion essay of Sept. 11, 2019 ("What the New Reading Wars Get Wrong"). She urges readers to clarify the term "reading" and points to a "war."
Special Education
Opinion
Stop Punting Dyslexia to Teachers. It's Everyone's Responsibility
Struggling to read is more than just a classroom problem—and teachers need support, writes Molly Ness.
Education
N.C. Procurement Raises Questions of Vendor Selection, Dyslexia Screening, and State Reading Policy
Superintendents are among those worried about the state's controversial selection of a different reading-test vendor than the one its own internal committee initially recommended.
Equity & Diversity
Dealing With Dyslexia: 'It's Almost Like It's a Naughty Word' (Video)
When Scott Gann learned his son Dustin had dyslexia, he was shocked at the school's reaction. No one there wanted to use the word.
Special Education
Video
Dealing With Dyslexia: One Family’s Story
“We knew Dustin was smart, but we knew something wasn’t right.” That’s how Arkansas dad Scott Gann describes his son’s early years in elementary school. Dustin was struggling, and Gann said teachers kept telling him that his son just “needed to grow up, boys will outgrow this.”
Dustin, now 15 and in high school, remembers that he would just “sit there and stare at a piece of paper for like five minutes, trying to understand.”
Finally in 3rd grade, Dustin told his teacher, “You know, I can’t read.” Gann calls that moment an awakening--for both the teacher and Dustin’s parents.
That summer Dustin was tested and diagnosed with dyslexia, a learning disability that makes it difficult to read and spell.
Gann said it was an uphill battle to get Dustin the help he needed from his public school, so the family hired a private tutor and moved Dustin to a private school.
“We are in a place where we can provide help--and it’s not fair for those parents who can’t provide that,” said Gann, who has turned “all the pain and lessons we learned over the years” into advocacy. He joined other Arkansas parents to push successfully for changes in state laws to define dyslexia and establish requirements for screening and intervention.
School & District Management
Battle Over Reading: Parents of Children With Dyslexia Wage Curriculum War
A program to teach children with dyslexia how to read, will now be used with every child in Arkansas. Parents led the way—forcing the state to rethink reading.
Special Education
Video
Parents of Students With Dyslexia Have Transformed Reading Instruction
The students hid under tables, had stomach aches, were laughed at by classmates. Going to school was traumatic, because they couldn’t learn to read.
Parents spent thousands of dollars on private testing and tutoring to figure out what was wrong. They discovered that their children had dyslexia, a learning disability that affects one in five individuals and makes it difficult to read and spell.
“There’s no need for families to suffer like this,” said Audie Alumbaugh, with the Arkansas Dyslexia Support Group. “All we need to do is implement the appropriate programs.” Alumbaugh, whose niece has dyslexia, says schools need to teach reading differently, and not just for students with dyslexia.
Alumbaugh and other families successfully pushed lawmakers to change reading instruction in Arkansas. The new approach focuses on explicit instruction in phonics, in which students learn all the patterns of how sounds and letters go together. It’s a method backed by scientific research on the brain and how it learns to process written words.
This reading revolution is happening around the country, pushed in part by parents of children with dyslexia. “We’ve been doing it wrong all this time,” says Alumbaugh, a former teacher herself. “We need to get this right for kids.”
Reading & Literacy
Opinion
Explicit Phonics Instruction: It's Not Just for Students With Dyslexia
After a look at reading research, Kyle Redford concluded that instruction for all children should be like that provided to dyslexic children.
Special Education
Quiz
Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Dyslexia
Quiz yourself about the early signs of dyslexia in children, how educators can improve a child's reading accuracy, and other dyslexia facts.
Special Education
Opinion
A Special Education Student Speaks: Dealing With the Ups and Downs
Ella Griffith-Tager says the support she’s received in coping with her disability has varied year by year and school to school.
