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Intervention programs target students with dyslexia

Kevin Pieper
USA TODAY
Flippin Elementary School principal Tracie Luttrell, left, reads to kindergarten students, Jozy Rehrig and Willoh Darnell. The Flippin School district in Arkansas started a dyslexia intervention program this summer and has seen significant improvement with students.

FLIPPIN, Ark. — While listening to a dyslexia interventionist specialist this spring, Tracie Luttrell started to see the faces of students who were struggling in her elementary school — faces of past students who never really thrived but ones Luttrell knew were intelligent.

It was a light bulb moment for the educator.

"I knew right then there was something we could do for these students," said Luttrell, principal at Flippin Elementary School.

The district adopted a dyslexia intervention program, brought on several dyslexia interventionists and began screening students, all in advance of a recently passed law in Arkansas that will require school districts to meet the needs of students with dyslexia by the 2015-2016 school year.

The Mayo Clinic defines dyslexia as "a learning disorder characterized by difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words."

Arkansas is one of a number of states which have recently passed similar laws to help students with dyslexia.

According to Bright Solutions for Dyslexia, 18 states have adopted some form of dyslexia law and 25 states have either issued a dyslexia handbook or recognized October as Dyslexia Awareness Month.

Connecticut, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia are just a few states which have passed dyslexia laws in the last two years.

Debbie Stafford, a dyslexics interventionist at Flippin Elementary School in Arkansas, works with second grade student Rain Wood. A new state law means schools across Arkansas will have to implement dyslexia intervention programs by 2015.

Congress has even gotten on board, forming a bipartisan dyslexia caucus in the House.

Proposed House Resolution 456, has 111 signatures. It calls for schools, states and local educational agencies to "recognize that dyslexia has significant educational implications that must be addressed."

"A lot of good things have changed for dyslexia," said Dr. Sally Shaywitz, co-director at the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity. "(Resolution) 456 is important because it gives a scientific definition of dyslexia."

Shaywitz testified in September before the Congressional Committee on Science, Space and Technology on the "Science of Dyslexia."

"In dyslexia, there is an abundance of high quality scientific knowledge so that we have not a knowledge gap, but an action gap," Shaywitz told the committee. "It is our hope that hearing the depth and extent of the scientific knowledge of dyslexia will alert policy makers to act and to act with a sense of urgency."

The increased awareness of dyslexia nationwide, which affects 1 in 5 children, according to a Yale study, can be traced to a small group of parents in New Jersey. Three years ago Liz Barnes of New Egypt, N.J., and several other parents started Decoding Dyslexia New Jersey with the hope of helping their kids and advocating for legislative change.

Now 47 states have Decoding Dyslexia chapters.

"We started a Facebook page, started asking a lot of questions and met with our local legislators," said Barnes. "It was a whirlwind."

New Jersey passed two laws on dyslexia in 2013, and one this year.

"We're still in the infancy stage, but we really have opened a lot of eyes," said Barnes, a mother of a 13-year-old girl with dyslexia.

Back at Flippin School District, dyslexia interventionists have identified 20% of the student population (K-12) as having markers for dyslexia, and those students are getting help.

"It's changed the whole dynamic of our school," Luttrell said. "Students have gone from struggling learners who oftentimes are getting into trouble and acting out, to students who enjoy school and are confident.

"They are finally able to let everyone around them see the ability that's been masked for so long. Yes, I'm to the moon about it."

Pieper also reports for The Baxter Bulletin in Mountain Home, Ark.

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