October was National Dyslexia Awareness Month! Dyslexia is defined as ‘a specific and significant impairment in the development of reading, including but not limited to phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension that is not solely accounted for by intellectual disability, sensory disability or impairment, or lack of appropriate instruction’. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, dyslexia affects 5-20% of people and is the most common learning disability, accounting for 80% of all learning disabilities.
During the 2014 Iowa legislative session, a new law focused on dyslexia was created. The legislation defined dyslexia as an educational diagnosis and was added to Iowa Education Code. In 2018, a Dyslexia Task Force was created to address teacher training and support for students with dyslexia in Iowa. Green Hills AEA has several resources available to assist educators and parents of students with dyslexia. Our GHAEA Literacy Website contains a dyslexia tab with links to sites such as Iowa Dyslexia Resources, Decoding Dyslexia Iowa, and Iowa’s Area Education Agencies Dyslexia Information Sheets, which help parents and educators better understand how students with dyslexia are assessed and supported in Iowa schools.
GHAEA also continues to offer the Essentials of Dyslexia course at least once a year. The course uses the book Essentials of Dyslexia Assessment and Intervention by Nancy Mather and Barbara Wendling. The next offering of this course will be in June 2021. In addition, the GHAEA Media Center recently added a new book Conquering Dyslexia by Jan Hasbrouck. Feel free to check it out!
For further information about dyslexia, please contact Karen Hesse or Jenna Hucka (GHAEA Dyslexia Contacts) or any GHAEA literacy consultant.
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