Teacher Knowledge of Dyslexia

The past year has been important for individuals with dyslexia and for those in positions of advocacy. On October 23, 2015, just five days before the International Dyslexia Association’s (IDA) annual conference meeting, the U.S. Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) released a policy guidance letter on dyslexia to state and local education agencies. In this letter, OSERS noted that “there is nothing in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004) that would prohibit the use of the terms dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia in IDEA evaluation, eligibility determinations, or IEP (individualized education program) documents” (Yudin, 2015, p. 1). Three days after the release of the policy guidance letter, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Research Excellence and Advancements for Dyslexia Act (READ Act, 2015). The READ Act was passed into law on February 18, 2016, and requires the National Science Foundation to allocate at least $5 million annually to dyslexia research. Furthermore, in a recent Perspectives article, Youman and Mather (2015) noted that more than half of the states in the U.S. have enacted dyslexia laws and a growing number of states have dyslexia initiatives and resolutions to promote dyslexia awareness in K–12 settings (see Youman & Mather, 2015 for a full list). Recent federal guidelines, research initiatives, and a push for state laws outlining expectations for dyslexia awareness are steps in the right direction to ensuring that all individuals, including those with dyslexia, are provided with access to research-based reading instruction. Given this impetus, we believe it is vital to understand the current knowledge base of teachers, teacher educators, and teacher candidates regarding research-based reading concepts and dyslexia. In this article, we aim to do two things: (a) present an overview of the existing research base on teacher knowledge of reading concepts and dyslexia, and (b) provide suggestions for ways the IDA community can help bridge the gap across dyslexia research, teacher preparation and professional development, and advocacy

Fluency Interventions for Elementary Students with Reading Difficulties: A Synthesis of Research from 2000–2019

Oral reading fluency (ORF) deficits are a hallmark of reading difficulties. The impact of fluency struggles extends beyond word-level difficulties to include deficits in reading comprehension. Sixteen empirical studies conducted in 2000–2019 that examined ORF interventions among elementary students identified as having reading difficulties were reviewed to identify the characteristics (e.g., instructional variables, group size, type of interventionist) of effective ORF interventions and their impact on English oral reading fluency and reading comprehension outcomes. The systematic review revealed that interventions reported centered around repeated reading procedures (86.5%). Across the 16 studies, outcomes for oral reading fluency varied widely and most focused on speed and rate aspects rather than prosody. Effect sizes for rate and accuracy measures ranged from negligible to large (i.e., 0.01 to 1.18) and three studies found large effects for prosody outcomes. Effect sizes for reading comprehension ranged between non-significant and large significant effects. Findings support the use of repeated reading of text to build up ORF of students with reading difficulties. Interventions that were found to be most effective were those that were conducted one-on-one with a trained model of fluent word reading and accuracy. Findings also point to three gaps in our understanding: (1) the efficacy of interventions other than repeated reading, (2) effects of ORF interventions on prosody outcomes, and (3) sustainability of outcomes