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Grapevine-Colleyville school district officials are putting a portion of their federal stimulus funds to work helping dyslexic students overcome their reading and writing challenges.
It is an aim that other districts are also making a priority, using funding from local and state sources. "We’ve budgeted $220,000 to provide two dyslexia-certified teachers for two years," said Megan Overman, spokeswoman for the Grapevine-Colleyville school district. The funding is part of the stimulus program’s special-services allotment.Fifty students in the 13,663-student Grapevine-Colleyville district were receiving services in September, up from 44 in April.In Crowley, 153 students in the 15,129-student district receive dyslexic services, and in Arlington, about 1,000 of the district’s 63,500 students have been classified as dyslexic. The three districts are among many in North Texas that are adding staff and shopping for the best programs to serve their dyslexic students."It’s not a disability; dyslexic students simply learn and think differently," said Haley Keeling, dyslexia specialist in Crowley. "These kids all have average to above average intelligence." 'Burst of confidence’Dyslexia is getting a lot of attention by school administrators because of the numbers of students involved and because early intervention spells success for them.According to the International Dyslexia Association, 15 to 20 percent of people in the U.S. have a language-based learning disability, and 10 percent of them are dyslexic.Dyslexia services are individual and small-group-oriented, with usually a maximum of four students per teacher.Fourth-graders Kevonrick Kerr and Kaelin Wooldridge at Crowley’s Dallas Park Elementary School worked together last week during a "pullout" session, in which they leave their regular classes for half-hour blocks of intervention.They use dominolike tiles with letters to sound out the alphabet and put letters in sequence. They finish sequences with flash cards. Since cursive writing can be a particular problem for them, Kevonrick and Kaelin practice writing on a dry-erase board."It helps me most with my writing," said Kevonrick, adding that the work gives him a burst of confidence for when he goes back to regular classes.Kaelin feels better about her work, too."It helps me a lot in my spelling and reading, because I can get all the letters right," she said. Districts approach dyslexic services in a wide variety of ways.Informed instructorOne of the new full-time dyslexia teachers at Grapevine-Colleyville is a bilingual specialist. The two join two contracted dyslexia teachers and three reading-intervention staff members in offering services. Three additional reading-intervention specialists are also available to help dyslexic students.The district is also moving to a new program in cooperation with Texas Scottish Rite Hospital.The Texas Education Code defines dyslexia as "a disorder of constitutional origin manifested by a difficulty in learning to read, write or spell despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence, and socio-cultural opportunity."
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