Dyslexia Guidelines from California Department of Education

IDA Northern California’s 10 important-to-know highlights from the newly released dyslexia guidelines from the California Department of Education

1. The use of the word dyslexia to identify students is encouraged.
2. The neurological basis of dyslexia is recognized and explored.
3. Acknowledgement is given to research findings that show changes to brain function can occur in response to intervention, especially in young children.
4. Symptoms of dyslexia in different age groups are documented, providing parents and teachers with a checklist of behaviors that may indicate dyslexia.
5. Universal screening of all students from kindergarten on is encouraged, to provide early identification of students who have signs of dyslexia.
6. Schools are encouraged to assess students whose academic struggles indicate they may have dyslexia early, rather than wait until they fall far behind their peers.
7. Educational services for students with dyslexia are recommended that are evidence-based, multisensory, direct, explicit, structured, and sequential. School districts and preservice programs are encouraged to train teachers in some method of Structured Literacy, a term used to describe any of the known programs that follow these principles.
8. Acknowledgement is given that most students with dyslexia do not need special education, but instead need good, research-based, explicit instruction in the classroom, along with accommodations to help them access the curriculum. Nevertheless, students with dyslexia may qualify for either IEPs or 504 Plans.
9. Students with high IQ who are not reading up to expected standards can be identified as having dyslexia.
10. There is a great need to do more to help identify English Language Learners who might have dyslexia, as that demographic makes up a large number of students in California schools.