Annals of Dyslexia最新文献

Over the past decade, educators in Ohio have sought to reform reading instruction, driven by a desire to improve reading outcomes and bolstered by legislative actions and statewide partnerships. The Ohio Deans Compact, a coalition of prekindergarten through university (P20) leaders, has played a pivotal role in incentivizing and supporting reform of educator preparation programs, especially those focused on teaching reading. In addition, the Compact serves as a connector, bringing together higher education institutions, PK-12 school districts, professional organizations, and regional and state agencies to foster collaboration around the shared goal of improving learning outcomes for all. In this commentary, we highlight the Compact’s contributions to promoting cross-sector collaboration in education, aligning statewide initiatives, and strengthening educator preparation. We suggest that P20 initiatives like the one in Ohio may be especially effective in supporting and sustaining reading reform. While Ohio’s efforts demonstrate the promise of systemic change, they also underscore challenges, such as variability in program adoption and resistance to change within higher education institutions. Lessons from Ohio’s journey may offer valuable insights for literacy reform efforts nationwide, particularly for those seeking to position institutions of higher education as active partners in lasting improvement.

In an effort to increase the dyslexia knowledge of future classroom teachers, in 2022, the state of Louisiana passed Act 607, which requires all students seeking Louisiana teacher certification to complete a three-credit hour course specific to dyslexia starting in the 2024–2025 school year. With the implementation of the inaugural dyslexia courses in Fall 2024, this study examined the experience of creating and implementing this new course from the perspectives of the instructors and the teacher education students at a public state university. Utilizing an embedded case study approach, data sources included the course syllabus, course instructional materials, student surveys and reflections, and instructor analytic notes and reflections. The findings reveal the surprises, successes, and obstacles experienced by participants in this newly required course, offering practical insights for adapting legislative mandates into effective educational practices. This study provides a framework for universities nationwide to enhance literacy instruction within teacher preparation programs, contributing to the broader effort of improving outcomes for students with dyslexia.

Dyslexia legislation has been increasingly enacted across US states to improve the early identification and support of students with dyslexia. However, little is known about the extent to which these laws have influenced dyslexia identification rates and reading achievement outcomes. We examined the impact of state dyslexia laws using repeated cross-sectional, student-level data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) fourth-grade reading assessments collected between 2003 and 2022. We assess changes in Specific Learning Disability (SLD) identification rates and reading performance before and after dyslexia law enactment across states. Across 47 states with relevant laws, 26 states (55%) showed no significant change in SLD identification rates, 13 states (28%) experienced increases, and 8 states (17%) experienced decreases. For reading achievement among students with SLD, 4 states (9%) showed significant improvement, 20 states (43%) showed declines, and 23 states (49%) showed no change. These mixed results are consistent with the wide variation in scope and implementation of dyslexia laws, as well as broader national trends in reading achievement. Importantly, most states do not require students with characteristics of dyslexia to be classified under SLD, so changes in identification rates are not a direct expectation of such legislation. Our findings suggest that enactment alone is insufficient to drive consistent improvements; effective implementation, integration with broader literacy reforms, and stronger monitoring systems are likely needed for these policies to achieve their intended goals.

In the last 13 years, there has been an explosion of state-level dyslexia legislation amidst a rapid and dispersed advocacy movement. Thus, it is important to understand the genesis and impact of these policies across all stages of the policy process (Anderson, 2023). Given that most of these laws have been only recently enacted, the existing research on them is limited. This comprehensive review synthesizes research on state-level dyslexia laws, identifies gaps across policy stages, and highlights priorities to inform more effective policy. We examined peer-reviewed journal research on state-level dyslexia laws across different stages of policy development, and our search and screening process resulted in 12 articles. In all, the results of this literature review show that the research on state-level dyslexia laws has employed multiple kinds of research designs and theoretical frameworks while aiming to answer different descriptive and evaluative questions. The implications of our findings show that more evaluative research is needed on state dyslexia laws to understand their effectiveness, unintended consequences, and impact on special education, with comparative studies helping to inform policies that better support students with dyslexia.

Using statewide archival data, this study identified third graders meeting the state’s criteria for having characteristics of dyslexia and their core reading teachers of record. Analyses explored whether teachers’ participation in various amounts of state-provided knowledge training with/out participation in ongoing coaching was associated with their identified students’ (a) growth on a universal reading screener (URS) or (b) scores on summative state test performance. Students tended to have slower URS growth when their teachers participated in PD beyond the state-required minimum, and growth was significantly slower when teachers were coached on implementing high-quality instructional materials (HQIM). Results were similar across models using various performance ranges for identification of dyslexia characteristics, and no subgroups would have met criteria for being exited from the dyslexia characteristics designation at the end of the year. However, students had higher state test scores when their teachers participated in additional PD beyond the minimum, and performance was significantly higher when the PD included coaching on HQIM implementation. There was some variation in significance across the dyslexia characteristics performance ranges, but no subgroups met expectations for on-grade-level reading. Moderator analyses revealed lower state test performance when students had a second-grade teacher with the same form of PD as the third-grade teacher. Results are discussed in light of statewide policies and the implementation of PD at scale.