When instructor Cindy Haralson would level at her preschool class with a stuffed owl named Child Echo, most youngsters rapidly repeated the letter, phrase, and sound they’d simply heard her say. Suppose “B, bat, b.”
However one little woman — an excellent listener and pure problem-solver — stared blankly at her instructor day after day final 12 months, unable to breed what she was listening to and seeing. Haralson recalled the woman taking a look at her classmates, as if to say, “How do you guys do this? How are you aware that?”
The woman’s battle with alphabet classes was the type of purple flag that may sign issues studying to learn, issues that Haralson believes too usually go unaddressed for years.
“It looks as if we at all times wait until kindergarten or first grade, and typically second grade,” mentioned Haralson, who teaches within the tiny La Veta Faculty District in southern Colorado. “I feel we wait too lengthy to determine these items out.”
So Haralson was thrilled when her district joined a regional pilot program final 12 months to display screen college students in preschool by first grade for indicators of dyslexia, a standard studying incapacity that makes it onerous to establish speech sounds, decode phrases, and spell them. Different collaborating districts embrace Cotopaxi, Aguilar, Manzanola, Primero, and Huerfano. This 12 months, two extra districts — Crowley and Fowler — will be a part of, and collaborating colleges will begin screening second-graders as nicely.
The screening program, which is run by the South Central Board of Cooperative Instructional Companies, or BOCES, comes amid a yearslong push by Colorado leaders to enhance early studying instruction by higher curriculum, extra instructor coaching, and well timed assist for struggling readers. Whereas state lawmakers have stopped brief of requiring colleges to display screen college students for dyslexia, extra districts are spearheading such efforts on their very own, together with giant ones like Boulder Valley and Denver.
However educators say dyslexia screening is doable in small rural districts, too.
Rachel Arnold, literacy coordinator for the South Central BOCES and the chief of the pilot program, mentioned extending dyslexia screening to all Colorado youngsters is a matter of fairness.
“Relying in your space code, ZIP code, the place you reside, not everybody has entry to that,” she mentioned.
Arnold believes the state ought to mandate and fund dyslexia screening statewide.
Southern Colorado pilot makes use of new dyslexia screening device
About 200 youngsters had been screened for indicators of dyslexia by the BOCES pilot program final 12 months. That quantity may double as this system expands in 2024-25.
The pilot depends on a comparatively new dyslexia screener referred to as EarlyBird that was developed by researchers from Harvard College and the Florida Middle for Studying Analysis. Arnold, who’s utilizing a part of an $86,000 state grant to assist pay for the two-year pilot, estimates EarlyBird screening prices about $7 per pupil per 12 months.
The screener is run thrice a 12 months, with college students answering questions on an iPad whereas a instructor appears to be like on. Sometimes, every screening takes about an hour, however it’s usually administered in 15- to 20-minute chunks over a pair weeks.
Arnold mentioned she was initially leery about a web based evaluation, however mentioned youngsters benefit from the game-like format and the cartoon chook that leads them by it. EarlyBird assesses quite a lot of early studying abilities, resembling rhyming, vocabulary data, making connections between letters and sounds, and retrieving info rapidly and mechanically.
Whereas Colorado’s flagship studying legislation — referred to as the READ Act — already requires elementary college lecturers to judge college students’ studying abilities in kindergarten by third grade, some dad and mom and educators say the assessments used for that may miss college students with dyslexia.
“The READ Act has many great issues, however it isn’t dyslexia laws,” mentioned Arnold.
Holly Massarotti, a kindergarten instructor and elementary dean of scholars within the Primero district, mentioned the READ Act evaluation her district makes use of — IStation — isn’t as delicate as EarlyBird in flagging youngsters with indicators of dyslexia.
Some youngsters who had been “on the bubble” on the IStation evaluation had been caught by EarlyBird, she mentioned.
“As we dug deeper into what their information confirmed, it was evident that that they had an issue,” she mentioned.
Whereas dyslexia can intervene with the flexibility to learn and be taught for a lifetime, with the proper instruction, college students can do in addition to their friends.
In Haralson’s preschool classroom, 13 college students ages 4 and 5 had been assessed with EarlyBird. Six had been flagged for additional assist throughout brief classes twice every week, together with the little woman who’d beforehand seemed confused throughout alphabet classes.
She made “astounding progress,” Haralson mentioned. “What a present to catch it early.”
Screening takes time, however pleases dad and mom
Arnold mentioned the most important pushback to the dyslexia screening was over the additional time it could take to manage.
Massarotti admitted she was hesitant when Arnold proposed the concept. However her college adjusted the studying evaluation schedule, and lecturers and aides labored collectively to manage the screener as effectively as attainable, she mentioned.
“It may be completed, and I feel the info is well worth the problem that it takes,” she mentioned.
In lots of circumstances, dad and mom had been notified in regards to the outcomes of the EarlyBird screening at parent-teacher conferences. Typically, the outcomes confirmed suspicions households already had that one thing wasn’t fairly proper — say, their youngster wasn’t choosing up the ABCs, or couldn’t discover the proper phrases to specific themselves.
Haralson mentioned dad and mom appreciated seeing the screening outcomes and studying how they may shore up their youngsters’s weak areas with early studying actions at house.
“They had been so psyched,” she mentioned. “They thought it was good that we had been even trying this early to see if there was any kind of problem.”
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, masking early childhood points and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.
