The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) recently released a dyslexia toolkit that provides 20 pages of guidance, meant to help teachers meet the learning needs of students with dyslexia or those who display characteristics of the language-based learning disability. According to the International Dyslexia Association, students with dyslexia often experience difficulties with both oral and written other language skills, such as writing and pronouncing words. KDE created the toolkit to assist in building an understanding of dyslexia and identifying early recognition characteristics.
“Kindergarten to Grade 3 Dyslexia Toolkit” was designed in response to The Ready to Read Act (House Bill 187, 2018), which was passed last year in a bipartisan effort aimed at “decreasing the educational barriers students with dyslexia face.”
Austin Learning Solutions estimates that one in 10 people across the United States have dyslexia, but out of the 40 million dyslexic Americans, only 2 million are aware they have it. It’s estimated that 20 percent of school-aged children are dyslexic across the U.S. Both parents and teachers recognize that it is a difficult learning disability to diagnose.
“It’s so hard to determine whether or not [students] have it,” said Sharon Warren, a fourth-grade teacher at Highland Elementary School. “A lot of kids just don’t understand what’s happening to them, so sometimes they compensate. They might act out because they just don’t think they’re smart. We might think they’re acting out shows they don’t care or that they’re low [academically] when, most of the times, they aren’t low at all.”
Warren said she’s taught students who’ve been diagnosed with dyslexia, and she’s also taught those she’s suspected were dyslexic, but hadn’t been diagnosed by a physician. A young boy Warren taught told her that the words he was trying to read were all over the page. That same boy often wrote all over his pages as well.
“I think the toolkit is an excellent thing because, otherwise, we don’t have any way of determining whether they’re having trouble overall,” Warren said. “My students all read ‘Fish in a Tree’ (a book about a student who lives with dyslexia) and I heard some students say, ‘Hey, that happens to me.’”
Sarah Jackson’s 10-year-old daughter Lucy went years without a clear dyslexia diagnosis. It wasn’t until first grade, when Lucy began taking pencil and paper tests instead of oral examinations, that Sarah noticed something didn’t add up.
“In preschool, she was fine. In kindergarten, she was fine,” Sarah said of her daughter. “She was really well-behaved, so she slipped through the cracks.”
Sarah said raising a first-grader who’d seemingly never struggled in school before, it was a shock when Lucy could only identify 14 words on a very long list of words she was supposed to have known. By second grade, Sarah’s daughter switched schools. Lucy’s test scores were very low at her new school, which inclined a teacher to ask, “What’s going on?”
“With her, she did write some letters backward or upside down,” Sarah said. “She said the letters were floating away from the page.”
As for the dyslexia toolkit released by KDE, Sarah feels it’s a good start in bringing awareness to a disease that many students suffer from but is not often addressed.
Jill Mayfield, a special education teacher and, currently, the only dyslexia-focused tutor in the local area, said she’s begun seeing a lot more dyslexia-diagnosed students coming to her for help. However, Mayfield says it’s still a struggle for teachers to pinpoint when and why their students are struggling. According to Mayfield, even if the dyslexia is identifiable, it takes a physician to diagnosis it.
“A lot of them are undiagnosed. It’s hard to put a number on it,” Mayfield said. “My name’s gotten out there that I tutor students with dyslexia because there’s no one in our area who specializes in dyslexia. There is a high need of children who have been diagnosed and need additional help.”
Mayfield believes students with dyslexia are often misunderstood. While they have normal conversation and social skills and average or above-average IQs, problems arise with language-based and, sometimes, math skills. This dichotomy can be confusing for adults who often see those children as intelligent, artistic, well-spoken and intuitive.
Mayfield said the toolkit will benefit dyslexic students who don’t otherwise qualify for special education.
Jill Mincer, a tutor who’s spent two years guiding Lucy through the ins and outs of sorting, recognizing and organizing the raw materials of language for thinking and use. Sarah said her fourth-grade daughter — who read at a pre-preschool level only two years before — now reads at a fourth-grade level and above.
“I think the teachers will benefit from the toolkit because dyslexia just hasn’t been a main focus,” Sarah said. “I think that’s a great start but it’s by no means the end to this.”
The dyslexia toolkit can be found on KDE’s website at education.ky.gov under the “Educators” portal on the website’s homepage.
