Boulder Valley, St. Vrain Valley parents of dyslexic students want earlier identification, support

March 25--One of the first indications that Elizabeth Steed's daughter might have difficulty learning to read came from her kindergarten teacher, who noticed that she would know something one day, but forget it the next.

With a family history of dyslexia, Steed said, she brought up the possibility with the Boulder Valley school. But the special education teacher recommended a "wait-and-see" approach.

Instead, the Steeds, who live in Lafayette, paid for a private evaluation over the summer that resulted in an official dyslexia diagnosis. Dyslexia is a learning disability that affects language processing.

After talking to other families of dyslexic students who were unhappy with the level of support, they decided to move their daughter to a private school. They also hired a tutor to work with her during the school day.

Though it has stretching them financially, Steed said, staying in Boulder Valley would have meant waiting for her daughter to fall far enough behind to qualify for extra help.

"The school seemed so opposed to supporting our daughter," she said. "It wasn't just about her reading, but also about all the lack of confidence and anxiety issues that could develop if she fell behind."

But with her younger brother in preschool also showing signs of dyslexia, the family now is among those lobbying Boulder Valley to provide more services.

"We can't do tutoring and private school for both of them," Steed said.

Parents in both the Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley school districts are actively working to raise awareness about dyslexia and get more support in place for students.

St. Vrain Valley parent Carolyn Storz began seeking other parents of children with learning profiles similar to her child in the last school year.

Uniting around dyslexia and other reading-based learning disabilities, her group began hosting dyslexia simulations at the Longmont Public Library and working with the St. Vrain Valley School District.

In response, St. Vrain Valley started a dyslexia task force in August that includes parents and representatives from multiple district departments.

"We're looking at what's been working and where we can strengthen what we're already providing," said Diane Lauer, St. Vrain Valley's assistant superintendent of priority programs and academic support. "It's just amazing the research that's out there now on dyslexia. We want to provide intervention and access."

With the St. Vrain Valley group as a model, Boulder Valley parents started their own support and advocacy group in December called BVKID, or Boulder Valley Kids Identified with Dyslexia.

"We want to create the same momentum," said Broomfield parent Marie Folmar. "St. Vrain is really paving the way for what this can and should look like."

Boulder Valley's group is lobbying for three main changes: screening to identify children at risk for dyslexia in kindergarten, research-based interventions for identified students and teacher awareness training.

"There's not a school district conspiracy not to help these kids," said Boulder Valley parent Michael Bucey, vice president of the group. "It's just not well understood by most teachers."

'Brains are wired differently'

One common misconception is that those with dyslexia have a lower level of intelligence. Instead, intelligence and dyslexia aren't connected -- and one of the warning signs is a bright student who should be reading easily, but isn't.

Carter Kirkpatrick, a fourth-grader at Lafayette Elementary School, said that he wants people to know that "I don't really feel a difference from anyone else. There are kids who are smarter than me and kids who aren't."

It's also not about reversing letters or writing words backward.

Instead, a common characteristic is difficulty linking the letters written on the page with their sounds. Those who are dyslexic generally struggle with accurate and fluent word recognition, have poor spelling and have difficulty decoding words.

Carter said the time he spends with a literacy tutor is helpful because "I learn all the reading rules, how words are spelled, how words can do things with different letters."

Brain scans of people with dyslexia show that they use a different part of their brains when reading than those who aren't dyslexic.

"Their brains are wired differently," Bucey said. "They can learn to read, but they have to be taught in a way they can learn."

Along with increasing understanding of what it means to be dyslexic, another challenge is figuring out how many local students are dyslexic.

Dyslexia doesn't have its own category, instead falling under the "specific learning disabilities" umbrella. And because dyslexia ranges from mild to severe, not all dyslexic students qualify for that special education designation.

"There are still a lot of kids who go undiagnosed," Bucey said.

While there aren't exact numbers, it's estimated that 15 to 20 percent of the population -- and 85 percent of children identified with a learning disability -- have dyslexia. In Boulder Valley, 20 percent equals about 6,000 students.

To illustrate how the district is falling short in helping those students, Boulder Valley parents are attending school board meetings by the dozens to share their stories.

They say the district typically won't evaluate their children for dyslexia until they're at least two years behind their peers. Many talk about being concerned in kindergarten or first grade, only to have teachers tell them to wait and see.

Without district support, they say, they're forced to turn to expensive private evaluations for a diagnosis, then even more expensive private tutors or schools.

Not all parents can afford to pay, Bucey said. For those who can, piling on reading instruction after school is especially hard for dyslexic students who've already had to put in so much extra energy during the school day.

"They're exhausted," he said. "They're not lazy. They're just worn out. My kid comes home from school, and he is done."

He and other advocates say there's been extensive research to show that what students need is direct, explicit instruction in how language works -- the earlier, the better.

If kids with dyslexia receive intervention early, they may not need more expensive services later, he said.

"You can keep kids from getting into special education in the first place," he said. "The real golden time is kindergarten, first and second grade."

Four 'incubator' schools

In St. Vrain Valley, with the help of the dyslexia task force, the district has developed a three-year initiative that includes adding screening tools and research-based interventions.

Starting in January, the district identified four "incubator" schools that agreed to try different intervention models. The four are Erie, Hygiene and Central elementary schools and Westview Middle School.

The district also is planning to hire a half-time literacy interventionist at each elementary school, plus provide awareness training for all classroom teachers that includes using assistive technology, such as audiobooks, to support students.

"We have a lot already in place," Lauer said. "We want to connect what we have to students with dyslexic profiles."

For Boulder Valley's struggling readers, elementary school literacy specialists provide intensive small-group and one-on-one help. But advocates say the two programs the district uses don't work well with dyslexic students.

So last school year, the district started a small pilot of the Barton reading and spelling program with 40 students at 22 schools. Barton is one of several programs designed for dyslexic students.

This year, the district expanded to almost 100 students, training 65 special education and literacy teachers in the program. Most of the students are in elementary school, though there are a few middle and high schoolers.

It's taught one-on-one, mainly before or after school.

Jackie Papierz, a district literacy specialist, said the program is scripted and sequential, adding in new skills only once the current ones are mastered. A typical student masters new material with just a few repetitions, she said. A student with dyslexia may need 200 repetitions.

"It's not a quick fix," she said.

Students use letter tiles -- either real or virtual ones on an iPad -- to help them sound out and spell words. Other strategies in the multi-sensory approach include creating visuals to help students remember letters.

For "w," for example, students learn the phrase "the wind goes up in the air" to help them remember both the sound "w" makes and to write the letter pointing up instead of down like the letter "m."

In a recent session, literacy interventionist Carl Morreale worked with second-grader Tobin Oakley, who's tutored for 45 minutes after school three days a week at Broomfield'sBirch Elementary.

Tobin was practicing the rule for when you use a "c" versus a "k" -- it's "k" when it's followed by a "watch-out" vowel of "e," "i" or "y." So skin is spelled with a "k," but scab is spelled with a "c."

To practice, he used virtual letter tiles to spell nonsense words that included a "c" or a "k." He started by sounding out the word, ticking off each letter on his fingers to make sure he didn't miss any.

Each time, he ended by using the rule to explain why he chose a "c" or a "k."

As he worked, Morreale offered lots of encouragement and praise, especially when Tobin chose to read a book during a break. When queried about how he feels about reading now, Tobin replied, "awesome."

Angel Stobaugh, Boulder Valley's literacy director, said the district sees the Barton tutoring as a stopgap measure as it adds support for dyslexic students.

The district is training at least one special education teacher in each school to provide the Barton program, she said. Classroom teachers also have the option of taking a class called, "What is Dyslexia? Instructional Practices in the Classroom," though it's not required.

With limited funding -- district officials say intervention services have been funded at about a fourth of what's actually needed -- Boulder Valley has brainstormed several intervention strategies.

One recommendation is to identify one teacher per grade -- in kindergarten through third grades -- as the expert who provides targeted phonics instruction. Students with dyslexic behaviors would be clustered in that room for support.

Another suggestion is to add a small group intervention for dyslexic students during the school day along with the one-on-one sessions.

The district also is looking to update its language arts materials for all elementary students, something that's been on hold for two years because money wasn't available. The new materials cover all the components of reading, including the phonological awareness associated with dyslexia.

What's not recommended that parents are requesting is screening all kindergarten students -- plus students new to the district -- for dyslexia.

District officials noted the district already is identifying kindergarten students in the bottom 25 percent for reading using an assessment approved by the Colorado Department of Education.

Kim Bloemen, Boulder Valley's early childhood director, added that a universal dyslexia screener for preschool and kindergarten students may produce false positives because they're still learning letter names and sounds.

In the meantime, Boulder Valley parents plan to continue lobbying the district to commit more resources to helping dyslexic students.

"We think the response should be a lot more robust," Bucey said.

Amy Bounds: 303-473-1341, boundsa@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/boundsa

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