DiDomenico Urges Action on Bill to Help Students with Dyslexia
BOSTON – Senator Sal DiDomenico and his colleagues in the Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed legislation to help thousands of students in the commonwealth who suffer from dyslexia. Dyslexia affects one in five children in the Commonwealth. However, learning disability screening procedures are inconsistent from district to district, and sometimes even within districts themselves. Consequently, many families struggle to get a proper diagnosis of dyslexia and cannot advocate for the appropriate services needed to ensure their child can learn to read and succeed in school.
An Act relative to students with dyslexia puts in place the systems to create early screening protocols critically necessary to improving early literacy and achieving reading proficiency by 3rd grade for all students statewide. Senator DiDomenico, a co-sponsor of this legislation, urged his colleagues to support this bill and spoke passionately on the Senate floor on the need for this piece of legislation.
“This bill is important to so many children and families across our Commonwealth,” said Senator DiDomenico, Assistant Majority Leader of the Massachusetts Senate. “No student should ever fall behind in school or be challenged by self-doubt due to dyslexia, and yet this is far too often the case for children with dyslexia, largely due to a lack of proper screening and diagnosis. Early screening and proper diagnosis is a game-changer for our kids to ensure they get the services they need and deserve to thrive in our schools and achieve the success they are truly capable of.”
When caught early and at the appropriate time, students with dyslexia can receive specialized instruction and learn reading strategies so they do not fall behind their peers. The longer a student has to wait for a diagnosis and try to learn to read without these interventions, however, the harder it will be for them to catch up. This often results in longer-term self-esteem and other issues.
Once students with dyslexia learn strategies to read with their dyslexia, they can go on to succeed independently without future supports, saving the commonwealth millions of dollars in special education costs.
An Act relative to students with dyslexia sets up laws, regulations, and a system to support all students with dyslexia by:
requiring the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, in consultation with the Department of Early Education and Care, to issue guidelines to assist districts to develop screening protocols for students who have at least one indicator for dyslexia or another neurological learning disability;
adding identification of dyslexia and other neurological learning disabilities to the goals of the early literacy panel; and
tasking the early education panel with creating action steps to implement research-based recommendations from experts in early language and literacy development for student screening and teacher preparation for students with dyslexia and other reading disabilities.
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