Dyslexia and DCPCS/DCPS schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are two hurdles. 1) getting approved for services 2) getting the services you were approved for. No school does it well. You can have good and bad years at the same school.

Just budget for a tutor, about 8 grand a a year (100 a hour 2-3 hours a week). Work with whatever school you are in but don't count on them. I agree that kids with learning disabilities from poor families are left behind. There was some shocking research on the literacy rate of people who are incarcerated. If we could remediate learning disabilities and properly treat mental illnesses, our prisons would be so so empty :{

I've been saying this for years! Early interventions for learning challenges and trauma would reduce the incarceration/criminal rates and give so many more kids a much better life!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well for what it’s worth DCPS is better than MCPS because they send teachers to ASDEC for training which is located in Rockville! MCPS only does internal training - and this is why only 35% of 4th graders read at grade level in MCPS...+1 on paying for your own tutoring. The trick will be to find a good one. ASDEC has a referral service - don’t be afraid to dump the tutor if they don’t mesh.

None of my child's special education teachers were trained at ASDEC. One teacher had some LMB training, another was trained in Wilson, another was going to get some training in OG. It is a band-aid approach where the children need a systematic program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well for what it’s worth DCPS is better than MCPS because they send teachers to ASDEC for training which is located in Rockville! MCPS only does internal training - and this is why only 35% of 4th graders read at grade level in MCPS...+1 on paying for your own tutoring. The trick will be to find a good one. ASDEC has a referral service - don’t be afraid to dump the tutor if they don’t mesh.

None of my child's special education teachers were trained at ASDEC. One teacher had some LMB training, another was trained in Wilson, another was going to get some training in OG. It is a band-aid approach where the children need a systematic program.

Agree with the patchwork. We had a Wilson trained pull-out teacher who was great. Next year not sure what training she had but it was not a good year. This year the special ed teacher understands the importance of phonetic awareness and 2E kids so we are hopeful. Basically, it's who you get.

[Anonymous]

DCPS is supposed to be rolling out a whole new dyslexia approach. Contact Decode Dysleixia DC. - an advocacy group -
Tied with national efforts. And then also contact Corrine Colgan (instructional chief) at DCPS who claimed on a decode dyslexia zoom that she’d follow up with anyone who contacted her about it. Don’t feel like you’re overdoing it or “wait and see” that school will do the right things — they won’t unless you are the squeaky wheel. If you are, it’s a pain but it’s the only way to get anyone to deal with it. Otherwise DCPS waits til you get frustrated and leave the system (private or move). But if you push them, there are people who are up to date on what to do and how to screen and get services. But you won’t get them until you push and push hard ongoing. Yes it’s completely unfair for those with privilege- but work with decode dyslexia to help change that - they know how to do the screenings and services at all schools and won’t until they get pushed to do it and do it faster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS is supposed to be rolling out a whole new dyslexia approach. Contact Decode Dysleixia DC. - an advocacy group -
Tied with national efforts. And then also contact Corrine Colgan (instructional chief) at DCPS who claimed on a decode dyslexia zoom that she’d follow up with anyone who contacted her about it. Don’t feel like you’re overdoing it or “wait and see” that school will do the right things — they won’t unless you are the squeaky wheel. If you are, it’s a pain but it’s the only way to get anyone to deal with it. Otherwise DCPS waits til you get frustrated and leave the system (private or move). But if you push them, there are people who are up to date on what to do and how to screen and get services. But you won’t get them until you push and push hard ongoing. Yes it’s completely unfair for those with privilege- but work with decode dyslexia to help change that - they know how to do the screenings and services at all schools and won’t until they get pushed to do it and do it faster.

corinne.colgan @ k12.dc.gov

[Anonymous]

The OP is from 2015. For current info on dyslexia in DCPS, go to

SBOE dyslexia handbook https://sboe.dc.gov/page/special-education-other-school-supports

https://www.dcreadingclinic.org This new in DCPS and NOT specifically about dyslexia (for legal reasons)

https://www.decodingdyslexiadc.org for advocacy

[Anonymous]

Didn’t Chairman Mendleson talk about a new dyslexia bill at the announcement this morning? Not sure if it would help but did hear him mention it.

[Anonymous]

We had an excellent experience at LAMB with my dyslexic kids. You’ll get better info at the SN forum.

[Anonymous]

This article about dyslexia was fascinating:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/sep/17/battle-over-dyslexia-warwickshire-staffordshire?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email

[Anonymous]

Dyslexic DS had a good experience at Oyster and Adams with respect to dyslexia (ADHD not so much).

DS had a 4th grade teacher who helped me and DW to calm way down about spelling and reversing letters. We were super focused on that and trying to fix it with DS (to his detriment since we had no idea what we were doing). The teacher got us to back off and encouraged DS to write copiously without worrying too much about spelling or backwards letters. It was painful to me to see DS writing long texts with many phonetically spelled words, but the approach worked. Years later, DS enjoys reading and writing (including writing pretty good poetry in English and Spanish) and learned not to reverse letters and to spell much better (not perfect, but better every year).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dyslexic DS had a good experience at Oyster and Adams with respect to dyslexia (ADHD not so much).

DS had a 4th grade teacher who helped me and DW to calm way down about spelling and reversing letters. We were super focused on that and trying to fix it with DS (to his detriment since we had no idea what we were doing). The teacher got us to back off and encouraged DS to write copiously without worrying too much about spelling or backwards letters. It was painful to me to see DS writing long texts with many phonetically spelled words, but the approach worked. Years later, DS enjoys reading and writing (including writing pretty good poetry in English and Spanish) and learned not to reverse letters and to spell much better (not perfect, but better every year).

As the parent of a child with dyslexia learning another language I am very glad to read your post. We all do our best as parents and it’s great you adapted and that your son did as well.

Thank you for sharing and good luck to your son!

[Anonymous]

Orton Gilligham method

[Anonymous]

Yes -OG is evidence based.