Two out of ten children in the United States are struggling with reading disorders, with dyslexia as the root cause of most. Parents from New Jersey are doing their part in making a movement. Three bills concerning dyslexic children have been submitted in 2013 and is thriving to move forward.
Dyslexia is when a student would have struggles in terms of reading and writing. According to Dyslexia Association, children with dyslexia would suffer from poor spelling, lack of fluency, reading slowly with several mistakes.
Dyslexia is being recognized as a learning ability in most schools in New Jersey, as per NJ Spotlight. The parents pleaded to require public schools to help student with reading disorder, wherein they submitted three bills which included:
- putting the definition of dyslexia into state regulations
- requiring reading teachers to get training in learning disorders, including dyslexia
- push for dyslexia screening among students
"The word is coming out in discussions, and people referring to it now, that is a step in the right direction," Liz Barnes, one of the founders of DD-NJ said. "It's a slow start, but a start."
Though they already submitted the bills in 2013, its progression is a bit slow. Despite the pace, however, it does make improvements in terms of providing dyslexic students the educational assistance that they need.
"It is really within the last two years this explosion has happened," Barnes said at the forum at Rider University's Luedeke Center. "New Jersey has really led the wave, and lot of people are watching."
Though parents, school organizations and teachers need to be more aggressive in pushing for dyslexia assistance in terms of providing quality education, it is slowly being recognized. The education system is still pushing for more options in terms of helping children with dyslexia cope with the regular school requirements.
"People are saying the word dyslexia now," Alison Pankowski, a reading specialist in Montgomery said. "There is different comfort levels of putting it in IEPs ... and we're still having that discussion, but we are at least having that discussion."
