DYSLEXIA OVERVIEW Kathleen Rotter, Ed.D.

TCNJ Dyslexia Initiative

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Is dyslexia a dirty word?

CHAPTER 131 AN ACT concerning special education and supplementing chapter 46 of Title 18A of the New Jersey Statutes. BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey: C.18A:46-55 Regulations incorporating definition of dyslexia. 1. The State Board of Education shall promulgate regulations that incorporate the International Dyslexia Association’s definition of dyslexia into chapter 14 of Title 6A of the New Jersey Administrative Code. 2. This act shall take effect immediately. Approved August 9, 2013.

CHAPTER 105 AN ACT concerning professional development for public school employees and supplementing chapter 6 of Title 18A of the New Jersey Statutes. BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey: C.18A:6-130 Professional development opportunities related to reading disabilities. 1. The Department of Education shall provide professional development opportunities related to reading disabilities, including dyslexia, to school district personnel. The professional development shall be made available to general education, special education, basic skills, and English as a second language teachers, instructional support staff, administrators, supervisors, child study team members, and speech-language specialists. The professional development opportunities shall be designed to account for the various manners in which different school district personnel interact with, or develop instructional programs for, students with reading disabilities. C.18A:6-131 Required instruction. 2. The State Board of Education shall, as part of the professional development requirement established by the State board for public school teaching staff members, require certain teaching staff members to annually complete at least two hours of professional development instruction on the screening, intervention, accommodation, and use of technology for students with reading disabilities, including dyslexia. The professional development requirement established pursuant to this section shall apply to general education teachers employed in grades kindergarten through 3, special education, basic skills, and English as a second language teachers, reading specialists, learning disabilities teacher consultants, and speech-language specialists. A board of education may make the professional development opportunities available to other instructional or support staff as the board deems appropriate. 3. This act shall take effect immediately and shall first be applicable to the first full school year beginning after the effective date of this act. Approved August 7, 2013.

CHAPTER 210 AN ACT concerning reading disabilities among public school students and supplementing chapter 40 of Title 18A of the New Jersey Statutes. BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey: C.18A: Definitions relative to reading disabilities. As used in this act: “Potential indicators of dyslexia or other reading disabilities” means indicators that include, but shall not be limited to, difficulty in acquiring language skills; inability to comprehend oral or written language; difficulty in rhyming words; difficulty in naming letters, recognizing letters, matching letters to sounds, and blending sounds when speaking and reading words; difficulty recognizing and remembering sight words; consistent transposition of number sequences, letter reversals, inversions, and substitutions; and trouble in replication of content.

C.18A: Distribution of information on screening instruments. 2. a. The Commissioner of Education shall distribute to each board of education information on screening instruments available to identify students who possess one or more potential indicators of dyslexia or other reading disabilities pursuant to section 3 of this act. The commissioner shall provide information on the screening instruments appropriate for kindergarten through second grade students and on screening instruments that may be suitably used for older students. A board of education shall select and implement age appropriate screening instruments for the early diagnosis of dyslexia and other reading disabilities. b. The commissioner shall develop and distribute to each board of education guidance on appropriate intervention strategies for students diagnosed with dyslexia or other reading disabilities.

C.18A: Screening for dyslexia, other reading disabilities. 3. a. A board of education shall ensure that each student enrolled in the school district who has exhibited one or more potential indicators of dyslexia or other reading disabilities is screened for dyslexia and other reading disabilities using a screening instrument selected pursuant to section 2 of this act no later than the student’s completion of the first semester of the second grade. b. In the event that a student who would have been enrolled in kindergarten or grade one or two during or after the school year enrolls in the district in kindergarten or grades one through six during or after the school year and has no record of being previously screened for dyslexia or other reading disabilities pursuant to this act, the board of education shall ensure that the newly-enrolled student is screened for dyslexia and other reading disabilities using a screening instrument selected pursuant to section 2 of this act at the same time other students enrolled in the student’s grade are screened for dyslexia and other reading disabilities or, if other students enrolled in the student’s grade have previously been screened, within 90 calendar days of the date the student is enrolled in the district. c. The screening shall be administered by a teacher or other teaching staff member properly trained in the screening process for dyslexia and other reading disabilities.

C.18A: Comprehensive assessment for the learning disorder. P.L.2013, CHAPTER In the event that a student is determined through the screening conducted pursuant to section 3 of this act to possess one or more potential indicators of dyslexia or other reading disabilities, the board of education shall ensure that the student receives a comprehensive assessment for the learning disorder. In the event that a diagnosis of dyslexia or other reading disability is confirmed by the comprehensive assessment, the board of education shall provide appropriate evidence-based intervention strategies to the student, including intense instruction on phonemic awareness, phonics and fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. 5. This act shall take effect immediately and shall first apply to the school year; provided, however, that the Commissioner of Education shall take any anticipatory actions that the commissioner determines to be necessary and appropriate to effectuate the purposes of this act prior to the school year. Approved January 17, 2014.

Lets take a quiz!

Most SWD are male. Most SWD will never learn to read. Most SWD are artistic. Dyslexia runs in families. There is a single dyslexia gene. Dyslexia can be cured. The main difficulty in dyslexia is reversals. SWD experience more fatigue in school. Dyslexia doesn’t exist in other languages like Chinese when it uses pictographs. Most SWD are good at sports. Most SWD are creative. SWD read slowly and laboriously. Most SWD have high IQs. Most SWD come from middle to upper middle class families. It’s best practice to assess children for dyslexia in second grade. SWD have working memory issues. If you perform well in school, you can’t be dyslexic. Dyslexia is a visual problem. Dyslexia can be outgrown. Every child who is significantly deficit in reading has dyslexia.

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 We begin our trip at a familiar place, a body like yours and mine. It contains a hundred trillion cells that work together by design. And within each one of these many cells, each one that has DNA, The DNA code is exactly the same, a mass-produced resume. So the code in each cell is identical, a remarkable but valid claim. This means that the cells are nearly alike, but not exactly the same. Take, for instance, the cells of the intestines; that they're vital is certainly plain. Now think about the way you would think if those cells were the cells in your brain.

What happened?

Definition  Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and / or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities.  These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction.  Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.  Adopted by the IDA Board of Directors, Nov. 12, This Definition is also used by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Our nation's special education law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, defines a specific learning disability as...  "... a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia."

The simple definition  Dyslexia means a severe reading disability, presumed to be caused by differences in the brain, that is not the result of the student’s intellectual level, instruction received to date, motivation or effort.

 “A teacher sent the following note home with a six- year-old boy: “He is too stupid to learn.” That boy was Thomas A. Edison”.

How do they differ from other weak readers?  They are weaker  Their disabilities persist despite careful instruction

What percent of students?  5-20% of all people

Dyslexia and SLD

ADHD and SLD

Dyslexia and ADHD

What causes dyslexia?  The exact causes of dyslexia are still not completely clear, but anatomical and brain imagery studies show differences in the way the brain of a dyslexic person develops and functions.  Moreover, most people with dyslexia have been found to have problems with identifying the separate speech sounds within a word and/or learning how letters represent those sounds, a key factor in their reading difficulties.

Inherited?  Yes  Genetic component

Gene?  Earlier studies: Dopamine-related genes ANKK1 and DRD2 are involved in language processing.  In further non-genetic studies, they found that prenatal exposure to nicotine has a strong negative affect on both reading and language processing. The gene DCDC2 was also linked to dyslexia.  In this new study, Gruen and colleagues looked deeper within the DCDC2 gene to pinpoint the specific parts of the gene that are responsible for dyslexia and language impairment.  They found that some variants of a gene regulator called READ1 (regulatory element associated with dyslexia1) within the DCDC2 gene are associated with problems in reading performance while other variants are strongly associated with problems in verbal language performance.  There is a second dyslexia risk gene called KIAA0319.  When you have risk variants in both READ1 and KIAA0319, it can have a multiplier effect on measures of reading, language, and IQ. People who have these variants have a substantially increased likelihood of developing dyslexia or language impairment. 

Beyond reading:  Spelling  Writing  Handwriting  Mathematics  All subjects where reading is required

Emotional Issues:  Years of failure while others succeed  Incredibly slow progress even with help  Siblings passing them by  Teacher concerns/dislike  Pressure to succeed without provision of tools to succeed  Peer ridicule  5 days a week, 180 days a year

Family  Confusion  Fear  Grief  Anger  Searching  Need for support 

 "Perhaps my early problems with dyslexia made me more intuitive: when someone sends me a written proposal, rather than dwelling on detailed facts and figures, I find that my imagination grasps and expands on what I read." - Richard Branson

Effects of stress:  Cortisol and adrenaline  Mental shut down  Fight or flight  Physical illnesses: diabetes, high blood pressure.  Headaches, anger, lowering of immune system, memory problems, trouble sleeping, eating disorders, trouble concentrating, muscle aches, lack of energy, depression and more.

Preventative vs. Remedial Models  Fences or ambulances?

How can we identify them?  By first grade:  Alphabet recognition  Phonemic awareness (no need to know letters)  Segmenting  Blending  Adding or omitting  Rapid Automatic Naming

Phonemic Awareness

Rapid Automatic Naming

Also  Some issues of working memory possibly  And obviously, for older students, slow, labored reading

Brain scans

Poor readers do not use the left temporal area to find the sounds of words.

How early?  Preschool scans showed differences in brain structure

Capable dyslexic readers rely more on right brain areas.

Remediation:  Multisensory, structured, language instruction  Orton Gillingham based  There are many OG approved programs  Linguistically based  Includes programs such as Wilson, Project READ, Lindamood-Bell, Sonday  /MSL2007FINALR1.PDF /MSL2007FINALR1.PDF

 “It is not easy to compete when you have dyslexia, but it is possible.”  Henry Winkler, actor, dyslexic

 Interventions in general education to support students with dyslexia!

Quiz:  How would you support a child who was blind with classwork involving reading?

What is your goal for the lesson?  To learn to read?  To learn to write?  To learn to spell?  To learn the content?

 “If you read to me I could tell you everything that was read. They didn’t know what it was. They knew I wasn’t lazy, but what was it?” - Whoopi Goldberg, actress

Change reading demands:  Decrease difficulty of reading.  Change out hard words for easier ones.  Provide alternate shorter or simpler texts to read.  Do you know how to check readability level?  Partner reading where one reads only  Electronic versions

 Be sure to complete every item on the page. Start by writing your name on the blank line above.  OR  Name: _____________

Writing demands:  Lets play!

Change handwriting demands:  Let them write less whenever possible!  Give choice of writing implements.  Let them draw rather than write.  Provide paper with proper sized lines.  Make sure the spaces are big enough to write in!  Use bullets.  Use checklists.

Provide graphic organizers for writing: Four Square  nts/Writing%20for%20Everyone.pdf nts/Writing%20for%20Everyone.pdf

Vocabulary support!  Read to them  Electronic texts and novels  Age appropriate choices for social capital

Vocabulary: finding meanings  Cantilever

Word: DefinitionSentence Goes withPicture

No more KWL’s!!! KnowLearnedQuestion

Spelling support:  Provide word boxes to choose from.  Let them ask a friend.  Don’t count spelling.  Use laptop with spell check.  Use word prediction programs on laptop.  Don’t refer them to dictionary please!

Technology:  m I Pad Apps for Literacy Instruction from International Dyslexia Association (Orton Gillingham group new name) m  589/ Orton Gillingham online academy 589/  Dyslexia help University of Michigan  /Domain/348/iPad%20Apps%20for%20Multisensory.pdf I Pad Apps for Orton Gillingham Multisensory Approach to Reading /Domain/348/iPad%20Apps%20for%20Multisensory.pdf

Special Gifts?  The Dyslexic Advantage  New York Times article

Gifts: The Dyslexic Advantage  MIND strengths

M: Material World  Spatial reasoning  Shape, size, motion, position or orientation of objects and the ways they interact  What they can do:  Legos  Models  Multidimensional art  Engineers, builders, architects

I: Interconnected Reasoning  Spot connections between different concepts or points of view  Associating things  See things from multiple perspectives  Big picture view  Global thinkers, gist detection  Scientists

N: Narrative Reasoning  Construct connected set of mental scenes from fragments of memory to recall the past, explain the present, or simulate imaginary scenarios and grasp or test important concepts  Forming episodic memories  Thinking in stories  Writers, film makers, historians, actors

 “I felt like an alien. I always felt like I never belonged to any group that I wanted to belong to.” -Steven Spielberg

D: Dynamic Reasoning  Accurately predict past or future states fusing episodic simulation  Works well with ambiguous situations where precise answers aren’t known  Things they don’t teach you in school!  Entrepreneurs  Inventors

 Charles Schwab:  “Passion is the great slayer of adversity. Focus on strengths and what you enjoy.”

Beyond instructional intervention:  One person who saw their value  One person who helped them get through each day  One person who told them it would get better  One person who gave them an outlet outside of school  One person who believed in them