‘We were heard.’ Gov. Brad Little funding gets Idaho teachers trained on dyslexia

“P-E-O-P-L-E,” chanted a group of several dozen Treasure Valley school teachers, tapping outstretched left arms once for each letter they sounded out.

The ritual was a science-based method for literacy instruction that Idaho teachers are now required to learn. Forty West Ada School District teachers attended last week’s word recognition workshop in Meridian to satisfy the requirements of a recent law meant to improve dyslexia intervention in public schools.

The mandates come from House Bill 731, which lawmakers passed after parents advocated codifying dyslexia intervention measures and teacher training, and after the Idaho Statesman’s reporting on dyslexic students’ struggles in school. Dyslexia includes a group of symptoms that lead to difficulty with language skills, like spelling, writing and word pronunciation, according to the International Dyslexia Association. It’s estimated to impact 15-20% of people.

While the new dyslexia requirements were enacted last year, school districts didn’t receive state funding to implement them until this year. Lawmakers in March approved $1.5 million to supplement the costs over the last year.

The Legislature also approved Gov. Brad Little’s request for $2.9 million annually to fund the dyslexia requirements in the future from the state’s general fund, which comes from state tax revenue. Improving literacy rates “continues to be a top priority” for Little, said Madison Hardy, the Republican governor’s spokesperson.

“His mission, to get all Idaho students reading proficiently by the third grade, has driven a historic five-fold increase in funding for literacy intervention programs,” Hardy said by email. “Gov. Little thanks Superintendent (Debbie) Critchfield for being an outstanding partner in highlighting the needs of these students and providing resources to teachers to help them succeed.”

With the state now funding dyslexia training, Idaho teachers this summer have flocked to professional development programs, like last week’s at West Ada’s Meridian training campus. The Meridian workshop was particularly meaningful for Idaho’s most vocal proponents of dyslexia awareness whose children attend West Ada schools.

“This whole process has been like turning the Titanic,” said Ali Sharp, of Meridian, the mother of an eighth grade Heritage Middle School student who requires specialist reading help. “We’ve come a long way.”

Dyslexia intervention comes with high costs

Until last year, Idaho didn’t require public schools to screen students for dyslexia or train teachers to address the disorder. Parents struggled to get their kids services at school and often relied on expensive private specialists if they could afford them.

Sharp told the Statesman that she and her husband pay a private reading specialist $10,000 per year to help their son, who was diagnosed with dyslexia in the third grade. Sharp said she was “thrilled” to find out that her son’s teachers attended last week’s training.

“I was very happy to see that we were heard,” she said by phone.

Sharp was among the parents with Decoding Dyslexia Idaho, the local chapter of a nationwide network of advocacy groups, that lobbied the Idaho Legislature to pass House Bill 731.

“I want Idaho’s families that have kiddos at home struggling to feel empowered,” said Robin Zikmund, president of the group, whose 15-year-old son has dyslexia. “Everybody wants kids to learn to read, so don’t just sit back and think it’s going to happen.”

Decoding Dyslexia Idaho organized last week’s Meridian workshop, which featured a course from the Institute for Multi-Sensory Education (IMSE), a Chicago-based tutoring company. The course is one of 20 state-approved professional development programs that satisfy the dyslexia training requirement in House Bill 731.

The program cost $1,200 per teacher, or about $50,000 for West Ada — Idaho’s largest school district — to send 40 teachers. Zikmund said Decoding Dyslexia Idaho secured a discount from the regular $1,500-per-teacher rate. IMSE also offered training last week in Idaho Falls.

Before the upcoming school year, primary and secondary school teachers must receive training on identifying dyslexia characteristics, while additional training to accommodate and instruct students with dyslexia is mandated for kindergarten through fifth grade teachers.

Acceptable courses include multi-sensory literacy training as well as evidence-based screening and intervention practices for identifying dyslexia and “understanding the pedagogy for instructing students with dyslexia,” according to House Bill 731.

Zikmund said teachers should learn those neurological research-driven literacy strategies — known among advocacy circles as the “science of reading” — in college. Instead, the responsibility and cost has fallen to school districts.

“We have all these teachers that don’t have this knowledge,” Zikmund said. “They’re doing the best they can with curriculum that’s provided that has a lot of holes.”

West Ada Superintendent Derek Bub on Thursday said he’s talking to higher education leaders about providing similar training to education students in universities.

“There will be a day in which this is just part of what we do,” Bub said. “I love working with some of our secondary educators, our universities, and talking about how we can implement programs like this as part of your training before you even walk into the classroom.”

Teachers learn ‘science of reading’

IMSE touts its multi-sensory literacy method as “not only effective for all students but essential for teaching students with dyslexia.” Multi-sensory literacy instruction breaks down reading and spelling into smaller skills while incorporating sensory feedback to teach the brain to remember words.

“People,” for example, is what IMSE calls a “Red Word,” or a word that’s frequently used in English but has an irregular spelling, which can be particularly challenging for early readers to master. The unexpected “o” after the “e” represents meaning — a connection to other similar words — but not sound, explained an IMSE instructor during a Thursday lesson.

Teacher trainees from West Ada used tactile methods to dissect the word “people” into individual parts. Colored tiles mapped out the word while arm touches accompanied vocal sound, providing “multimodal” feedback. Using visual, auditory and tactile feedback while spelling helps to promote long-term memory of challenging words, according to IMSE.

“I saw teachers that were excited about what they do,” State Superintendent for Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield, who attended the Thursday workshop, told the Statesman. “I can’t think of a more important way for students to be successful than to have excited, trained teachers.”

Jolynn Aldinger, a first grade teacher at Galileo STEM Academy in Eagle, who first attended an IMSE training last year, said it “transformed the way that I teach reading and spelling.” A teacher for more than two decades, Aldinger said she previously employed a “balanced literacy” approach. That relied on word memorization, either by the shape of words or by using picture clues, which doesn’t lead to long-term reading skills, she said.

Since implementing the multi-sensory approach last school year, Aldinger said her first-graders are spelling words, like “address” and “bankrupt,” that her previous students never mastered.

“They’ve practiced it so much and their brains have remembered that chunking of the letters and the tapping on their arms,” she said. “You can’t memorize all the words in the English language, it’s impossible. But I’m teaching them the skills and the strategies to read words that they don’t know.”

Dyslexia training advocates ‘not going away’

Parents said they want to see a plan from the State Department of Education to ensure school districts follow through on the new mandates. That includes narrowing the 20-course list of approved dyslexia training programs, Zikmund said.

“It is ridiculously long,” she said. “We’ve got to clean that up. We have to be very specific about what training districts can choose from, and it has to be vetted. It has to be based in the science of reading.”

Critchfield, who is in her first term as state superintendent for public instruction, said local school boards decide how they spend professional development funding for teachers. But state education officials are working on recommendations for “effective” programs.

“There’s a number of things that we’re going to put out to say, ‘Hey, when you want to make those decisions, take a look at what we’re recommending on how you prioritize using that money,’” she said. “I think that that’s a way that we help support the good work of a local board.”

Sharp said she has told West Ada leaders that she’s “not going away” and she’ll be “closely monitoring” how the district manages dyslexia resources when the new school year starts next month.

“My husband and I will continue to be advocates for our son and all the children in Idaho that need this,” she said.