- Be familiar with the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA)
- Understand your rights under IDEA
- Know how one qualifies for services under IDEA
- Know how to make a referral for special education services in the schools
- Be familiar with the components of Section 504
- Understand the IEP process
- Be familiar with the difference between IEP and 504
- Have tips and strategies to help navigate the IEP process
- Understand how to write IEP goals
- Learn strategies to successfully work and communicate with your child's school staff
A reading deficit impacts learning in all subjects
If we lived in the days before the printing press, this website would not be needed. This is because the majority of people did not need to read, and dyslexia didn't exist. But that is not the case.
With today's society becoming increasingly literate, reading and writing have become all the more important. Children go to school to learn to read and write. Dyslexia frequently is not identified until a child goes to school and fails to learn at the pace of his peers. This gets a teacher’s attention, as it should.
It is important that as soon as flags are raised your child gets evaluated. In today’s society, reading underlies nearly all learning. A reading deficit can impact learning in all subjects including math, social studies, and science. Once a student gets behind his or her peers it is very difficult to catch up. In addition, he misses out on learning fundamentals and important information that serves as background knowledge for learning new information.
Furthermore, a reading disability affects your child’s ability to demonstrate what he has learned in all areas of school, particularly when given a written test. Students with dyslexia often require additional time when reading and writing and are particularly disadvantaged when given a timed test. All of this can have a negative impact on one’s sense of self resulting in poor self-esteem and a poor concept of oneself as a learner, which can last a lifetime. Early identification is all the more important in order to mitigate this preventable outcome.
Accommodations are key to the success of dyslexics in school and you'll want to be sure that appropriate ones are in place for your child. Although frequently misunderstood as “crutches,” accommodations, in reality, level the playing field for dyslexics. Multisensory approaches are important aspects to teaching dyslexic students. Fortunately for teachers, these techniques have proven successful for all students.