Teachers group pushes back against proposed Wisconsin dyslexia testing mandate

Susan Troller, via a kind reader's email

Will Morton was a happy, creative and enthusiastic child until he went to kindergarten.

As his classmates sounded out letters, and began reading words and simple sentences, he fell behind. His teacher was perplexed by Will's lack of progress because he was clearly bright and had plenty of exposure to books and language at home. And his parents were worried, because Will's older brother and sister had learned to read easily.
"We knew nothing about reading problems because we hadn't ever had any experience with them, but I remember wondering in kindergarten if he was dyslexic because he seemed to have trouble recognizing letters and associating them with sounds," says Chris Morton, Will's mother. "His teacher told us not to worry, that it was a little developmental delay and we needed to give him time and he'd be fine."
But she was wrong, experts on dyslexia say.

Students like Will - who have persistent trouble reading because the neural pathways in their brains do not decode letters and sounds in the ways that make reading and writing natural - need specific help, they say, and the sooner the better. Without that kind of help, they will never catch up, and even if they manage to disguise their different learning style, they are likely to continue to struggle with reading, spelling, language and sometimes with math; in short, they won't ever achieve their full intellectual potential.

Learning Differences Network and Wisconsin State Reading Association.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at February 19, 2010 10:31 AM
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