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There have been many changes in public school education for literacy instruction since the passage of dyslexia legislation through SB 612 and SB 1003 which require the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to designate a Dyslexia Specialist to provide schools with support and resources to assist student with dyslexia and their families. The bills also require each school district to ensure that at least one K-5 teacher receives training related to Dyslexia from an Approved Vendor List in all three focus areas:
- Understanding and recognizing dyslexia
- Using evidence-based practices to systematically and explicitly teach the foundational skills in reading
- Intensifying instruction to meet the needs of students with severe reading difficulties
Additional requirements involve using the approved screeners to screen children for risk factors in reading when entering school for the first time in kindergarten or first grade.
The Oregon Dyslexia Institute, an approved vendor on the ODE list of Approved Dyslexia-Related Training Opportunities, has been involved in the training of teachers in the Bend-La Pine School District to meet the state requirements of the dyslexia legislation passed in Oregon. However, the Bend-La Pine School District has surpassed these state requirements and has gone “above and beyond” in order to improve the reading skills of all their students.
Under the leadership of Julie Walker and Lindsley Gehrig, the Bend-La Pine School District has been very busy training additional teachers and providing the needed support to help struggling readers, including students with dyslexia, gain literacy skills required to become a proficient reader. Their own current initiative with the science of reading integrated with their learned Orton-Gillingham Approach principles ensure the following:
- All K-1 teachers in Bend-La Pine SD will receive 3 half-days to work alongside an instructional coach on best practices and the science of reading.
- Follow up coaching cycles will be provided between each 1/2 day to support implementation of key practices.
- Resources are available to these teachers that have been developed by Julie Walker & Lindsley Gehrig’s team. These resources include systematic, explicit phonics slides for every week and every grade level to support teachers through a unique & successful coaching style to help them understand the “why” of each instructional routine and become “comfortable” using these resources with students that struggle with literacy.
- The developed instructional slides incorporate the science of reading research and the Orton-Gillingham Approach Principles. The resource templates that the Walker and Gehrig Team have developed include a multi-sensory approach to explicitly teach students the foundational skills of our English language. They really do make it “fun” to learn about the structure of our English language. The resources include (but are not limited to) techniques to increase quick orthographic mapping of frequent words and also irregular words, chants and motions to learn the sound/symbol relationship, multi-sensory dictation to increase accuracy and automaticity of various patterns in our language and a huge focus on multisyllabic word study for grades 3-5 to guide students in breaking down words to their syllable type for accurate decoding, but the concepts of learning syllable types begin as early as Kindergarten.
After completing another round of training this summer, the Bend-La Pine School District is ready to receive their incoming 2021 students. They have a plan to help struggling readers! After the latest round of dyslexia training in August 2021, Lindsley Gehrig said, "I am incredibly excited about all the work we have done in the past 4 years alongside Lynn to create resources and coaching support for teachers around the importance of the science of reading. The instructional routines developed from this ongoing learning is making a difference for all our students! Additionally, this year we are going from 2.5 literacy coaches for our whole district to 6 instructional coaches. I’m looking forward to getting these coaches out in the trenches with us to continue this important work."
Literacy is quite possibly the single most important skill our students need to acquire; before they graduate from high school, to be successful throughout their lives. We can all be thankful for the work and dedication Julie Walker and Lindsley Gehrig have done over several years to improve the literacy skills of all their students in the Bend-La Pine School District.
By: Lynn Lamping, Director/Trainer
Oregon Dyslexia Institute
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