State board highlights dyslexia progress as parents, students tell their stories

The Alabama State Board of Education on Oct. 13, 2022 adopted a resolution recognizing October as Dyslexia Awareness Month and heard parents, students and Dyslexia Advisory Council members describe long-running struggles to secure dyslexia-specific screening and instruction for Alabama children.

Board members and state education staff heard personal accounts from parents who said early screening and dyslexia-specific programs produced measurable gains for their children, while also describing years of advocacy and private out-of-pocket spending to obtain services. Sonia Yates, chair of the Dyslexia Advisory Council, told the board many advisory-council members were attending a concurrent dyslexia conference and thanked the board for actions dating to 2015 that she said set the foundation for more recent work, including the Alabama Literacy Act and a new Dyslexia Resource Guide issued by the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI).

"Because of you listening, we had some amendments or some recommendations that we made in 2017, which actually led into the Alabama Literacy Act," Yates said, thanking state leaders and legislators who supported the work. The board unanimously adopted the resolution recognizing Dyslexia Awareness Month.

Parents gave detailed accounts of children's academic progress and the costs of obtaining services. Ashley McCurdy, who identified herself as a member of the Dyslexia Advisory Council and a parent, said her oldest daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 5 and initially received interventions the family judged inadequate. McCurdy said the family's daughter scored "0.4" on a Star reading test early in first grade, then improved to "1.6" after being placed in SPIRE, a dyslexia-specific intervention. "It is amazing the progress that she made when she was finally being taught in a way she could understand and learn," McCurdy said. McCurdy also told the board the family had spent about $33,000 on private dyslexia therapy.

Krista Morrison of Mobile County described a separate multi-year advocacy effort for her child, Madeline, and said school-based screenings and interventions were inconsistent. Morrison said Madeline’s district-record reading-accuracy score appeared at "30 first percentile for district" in records the parent obtained and that a paraeducator-delivered SPIRE intervention had produced "no real functional gain." Morrison said private testing later produced diagnoses including dyslexia, generalized anxiety and inattentive ADHD and that the family continues to pay for private therapy.

State Superintendent Eric Mackey credited board actions going back to 2015 and the 2017 recommendations that led to the Alabama Literacy Act. Mackey and Governor Kay Ivey joined members of the board in thanking parents and educators for their advocacy and for classroom work to implement dyslexia training and interventions. Mackey noted the department is distributing a Dyslexia Resource Guide and said implementation remains a work in progress: "We're on the right trajectory, but not at the finish line yet," he said.

Board members and staff cited specific changes discussed in the meeting: statewide dyslexia screening and the availability of dyslexia-specific interventions such as SPIRE, shifts in some districts to curricula claimed to align with the science of reading (transcript reference to CKLA), and the new Dyslexia Resource Guide released by ARI. Several speakers said the dyslexia designation in the Alabama Literacy Act clarifies that dyslexia is a specific learning challenge that can be addressed through both general-education interventions and special-education processes.

The board took no independent new funding action during the dyslexia discussion; rather, members framed the topic within ongoing implementation of the Literacy Act and earlier rules. Several board members posed questions and noted continued need for teacher training, screening fidelity and resources to deliver intensive interventions in districts with fewer staff or high transportation and staffing costs.

The meeting closed the dyslexia segment with recognition of parents and students and an invitation for board members to take photographs with attendees. Board members said they expect continued progress and follow-up work through the department and local school systems.