Defines and provides screening for dyslexia. Defines dyslexia broadly as a neurological condition with symptoms including “difficulty in acquiring language skills; inability to comprehend oral or written language; difficulty in rhyming words; difficulty in naming letters, recognizing letters, matching letters to sounds, and blending sounds when speaking and reading words; difficulty recognizing and remembering sight words; consistent transposition of number sequences, letter reversals, inversions, and substitutes and trouble in replication of content.”
Requires that each school district shall screen students for potential indicators of dyslexia or other reading disabilities no later than the first semester of the second grade.
Update: Bill tied to H 4406, June 16, 2016
This is truly a wonderful bill….though I have a child with the diagnosis of dyslexia in Mass and the school system is ok with him reading at a 1st grade level and he is in 5th grade. They say as long as he is making even little progress on his IEP that they are doing their job. So with early test the schools could possible find a good amount of kids with dyslexia what are they going to do with them. I can assure you they are not set up to educate them properly. They have problems with the 1 they have now.
Connie, your school district is wrong. It is not enough for your child to be making little progress. He/She needs to be making effective progress and I would want to know what data they are using to measure that “progress”. As an educator and parent of a dyslexic son I encourage you to get an advocate. You are the longest standing member of your child’s special ed team and it is well within your right to learn more about your child’s progress or lack thereof.