Mayor Erik Adams announced on Thursday details plans to turn around the literacy crisis in New York City and serve thousands of children in public schools, especially those who may suffer from dyslexia. His undiagnosed dyslexia hurt his educational background.
School officials will screen for dyslexia in almost every student, but 80 primary and 80 junior high schools will receive additional support to meet the needs of children with dyslexia. The city will also launch two new dyslexia programs. One will be held at PS 125 Ralph Bunche in Harlem and the other at PS 161 Juan Ponce de Leon. In South Bronx โ The goal is to have a similar program in each autonomous region by 2023.
Staff also plan to train all teachers and create a new dyslexia task force. School leaders require school principals to pivot to a phonics-based literacy curriculum. Literacy experts say it’s the most effective way to teach reading to most children.
“Dyslexia suppresses many children in school, but it’s the most important thing in life,” Adams said in a press conference Thursday morning. “Getting the right treatment for you.” I’m forever annoying you until I can. “
New York is facing a literacy crisis. In less than half of grades 3-8, only 36% of black and Latin students were proficient in the state reading exams held in 2019, the latest year with data. Studies show that the coronavirus pandemic only exacerbated these results.
The lack of easily accessible academic support for children with dyslexia was a problem in the mayor’s mind. He said his own dyslexia had not been diagnosed for years because his mother did not have the information needed to screen him. He recalled, “I don’t want to go to school every day because I couldn’t keep up.”
Developing a universal dyslexia screening program at city schools was one of the few specific policy prescriptions the mayor offered during the campaign. He spent $ 7.4 million on the proposed budget to tackle dyslexia and other literacy problems.
“We will take the largest and most comprehensive approach to helping students with dyslexia in the country,” said Adams.
The new policy was applauded by a group that demanded to read the city’s reforms.
“The plans announced today could have a transformative impact if done well,” Kim Sweet, managing director of New York’s children’s advocates, said in a statement, the group said with education authorities. Working together, “All children learn to read even when they go to school.”
Carolyn Quintana, Deputy Prime Minister of Education and Learning, said it is difficult to say how many children are suffering from dyslexia in the city because the ministry has not been able to systematically identify dyslexia. However, she said national figures estimate that one in five children suffers from dyslexia.
Currently, getting support for children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities is a hassle.
Parents, principals, or other school officials must first refer the child for dyslexia assessment, which parents must agree to. The education department will then complete the initial assessment within 60 days. Authorities then determine if the child needs special education services and develop a personalized program.
Many families with larger financial resources often opt out of time-consuming processes and instead opt in to tutoring. Advocates and families say low-income families and black and Latino families have more difficulty identifying and accessing services for their children.
“Screening is expensive and costs hundreds of dollars, especially in black and brown multilingual communities, and financially struggling communities, many families can’t afford it,” Adams said. ..
Naomi Penha said she had four children with dyslexia and was one of several parents who helped launch the literacy academy collective.
“I’m familiar with the pain of trying to advocate helping children read books,” Penha said in tears Thursday morning. “I was desperate to find support. My only option was an expensive tutoring program because my children’s learning style wasn’t met in the classroom.”
Under the new plan, all children from kindergarten to second grade will be screened for literacy three times a year. The screening will be conducted by the education company Acadience Learning. Children in grades 3 to 10 are also screened three times a year, but the principal will be able to choose from three screener options, Quintana said.
If the child is consistently below the benchmark, secondary screening for dyslexia and other language-based disorders is recommended, Kintana said.
Once a child is identified as at risk, it is recommended for neuropsychological assessment. Some schools have partnered with the Promise Project, a non-profit group at Columbia University Medical Center, to help low-income families make assessments. This can cost thousands of dollars.
Students will then receive additional support at their current school or enroll in one of two new programs starting this fall.
Additional support includes more intensive instruction immersed in the Orton-Gillingham approach. It teaches reading in a more practical way, breaking down words into smaller, more digestible parts. The district-based coordinator works with all schools to coordinate instruction and provide intervention to their students.
Ruth Genn, one of the co-founders of a non-profit organization, said the Literacy Academy Collective piloted second and third grade classrooms at PS 161 in the fall, with 15-18 students from the school in each class. Students are scheduled to participate. The goal is to eventually open another school and work with children from kindergarten to 8th grade.
Lab School for Family Literacy runs the program on PS125. There, each of the two grade levels (1st and 2nd or 2nd and 3rd) has a separate class for the struggling reader. Teachers in these classes are trained in the Orton-Gillingham approach in a 10-day intensive program.
School Secretary David C. Banks said the department would seek lessons from these schools in expanding dyslexia programming to other school districts.
“They will be a laboratory for innovation for us,” Banks said.
The all-day program is not the first in the city. Opened in Staten Island in 2019, the Bridge Preparation Charter School is the first and only public school in the state to help children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. City officials worked closely with school officials to learn more about programming.
The Prime Minister and other educators also have time to study the methods used at Windward School, a private school with campuses in both New York City and White Plains, which primarily serve children with deafness. Spent. Kintana said teachers at Windward School would train teachers at other schools to help children with dyslexia.
Under the new plan, school officials will require principals who can choose a curriculum to move to a reading program based on reading science. Many are now using the one developed by Lucy Culkins, a scholar at Teachers College, Columbia University.
According to Quintana, authorities require the principal to choose from a small number of phonics-based curriculums and include them as part of a comprehensive reading program that includes foundations, truly great reading, and prevention of academic failure. ..
Adams and Banks, black men attending the city’s public schools, say dealing with the city’s reading crisis, especially eliminating racial disparities in literacy results, is a top priority. .. The mayor often talks about reading in connection with the school-to-prison pipeline, pointing out that about 30 to 40 percent of prison inmates suffer from dyslexia.
State officials are also brainstorming ways to help children with dyslexia.
Representative Robert C. Carroll of Brooklyn’s 44th District directs the state to form a panel of experts to develop guidelines for universal screening, evidence-based curriculum intervention, and training programs for teachers. Co-authored the bill.
Carroll said she was diagnosed with dyslexia in her first year and then attended two vocational schools.
“By having a sequential, multi-sensory, phonics-based, personalized, evidence-based curriculum, I was able to become a successful student, reader, and writer,” he said. The bill passed the legislature on Wednesday and is currently awaiting a proceeding in the Senate.