OH Dept. of Ed. Rules Against Columbus School District for Non-compliance in the Area of Learning Disabilities

Read the Ohio Department of Education's complaint findings against the Upper Arlington City School district (Columbus, OH).

ODE finds the Upper Arlington District negligent in:

Identifying students with Specific Learning Disability, including dyslexia, in a timely manner- causing students to be placed in ineffective programs for 2-4 years.

Providing interventions (especially in reading) that do not address or resolve the student's academic difficulties; consequently resulting in those students being denied timely evaluations.

Following written guidelines and procedures in identifying struggling students

The Upper Arlington School District agreed to provide teacher training on policy and procedures in identifying children with learning disabilities and to implement teacher in-services on such learning disabilities as dyslexia, ADHD, and dycalculia.

Dyslexia Independent of IQ

According to MIT News Office:

IQ is not a good predictor or indicator of reading difficulties.

Brain-imaging study suggests that reading difficulties are the same regardless of overall intelligence — and that more children could benefit from support in school.

Read more here.

Building Phonemic Awareness in Young Children

According to the National Reading Panel Report 2000, there are 7 essential phonemic awareness tasks that children must master to become proficient readers.

These phonemic awareness tasks include:

Count or say each sound

Add a sound

Delete a sound

Change a sound

Compare two words

Blend sounds into words

Create words that rhyme

Click here for ideas in fostering these essential building blocks to reading in

preschool and elementary aged children.

Common Myths About Dyslexia

Read about 15 Common Myths of Dyslexia including:

1. Reversing letters is a definitive sign of dyslexia.

2. Dyslexia cannot be diagnosed in young children.

3. Dyslexia is caused by poor teaching.

4. The solution for dyslexia is to have children read aloud more often.

5. If a child can read, he does not have dyslexia.

Congressional Budget Cuts Affect Learning Ally (RFB&D)

Like so many other nonprofit organizations, Learning Ally (RFB&D) recently learned that its current appropriation has been discontinued as part of the most recent round of Congressional budget cuts.

Effective August 31, all current individual memberships will expire. Effective September 1, a Learning Ally Individual membership will be $99 per year. However, prior to August 31, we are offering the opportunity to register or renew a one year Individual membership for $79. We hope you will take advantage of this limited time $79 membership offer.

What is Phonemic Awareness?

Listen Dr. Reid Lyon, former Chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch within the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as he explains in his own words how phonemic awareness is an essential reading skill that children must have to become good readers.

OH House Passes Dyslexia Bill!

According to Gongwer News Service:

The OH House approved 93-1 a bill that would allow three schools to voluntarily join a three-year pilot program involving screening and special instruction for students with dyslexia in cooperation with a local library.

Co-sponsor Rep. Ted Celeste (D-Grandview Heights) said as much as 20% of the population has the neurobiological disability that affects ones ability to read and do arithmetic. The goal of the pilot is to demonstrate and evaluate the effectiveness of early reading assistance programs for children with dyslexia and to evaluate whether those programs can reduce future special education costs.

"Dyslexia is not a disease, so there is no cure," he said, adding the bill would add dyslexia to the Ohio Revised Code definition of a learning disability.

Early identification of dyslexia will decrease the need for special education services, and all parties involved will experience long-run cost savings.

Existing Department of Education funds would be used to pay for screenings.

"By identifying dyslexia early on in the course of learning to read, we will prevent children from falling significantly behind in decoding, reading fluency, spelling and writing let alone avoiding the heartache, self esteem damage and expense to the families and schools involved," he said.

Rep. Brenner said participating schools would report results of the pilot after three years to determine if the program should be expanded.