EMPORIA STATE RESEARCH STUDIES Vol. 53, no. 1, p. 33 – 43 (2022) _____________________________________________________________________________________
(Re)defining the ABC’s of Misinformation - What Literacy Teacher Educators and K-12 Teachers Need to Know About Dyslexia and the Dyslexia Debate KATHLEEN HOWEa AND TEDDY ROOPb a
Park University, b Emporia State University; Corresponding Author: Kathleen.howe@park.edu
______________________________________________ Dyslexia legislation has spread across the United States in recent years. Literacy teacher educators and K-12 teachers were largely excluded in efforts to bring about these laws. Dyslexia advocates--parents, professional associations, and companies, crafted a narrative that is not in sync with the larger body of literacy research, aiming to influence the nature of teacher preparation and K-12 instruction. The authors present an overview of legislation and seek to clarify key terms across the dyslexia debate to inform K-12 teachers and teacher educators beyond what is shared by advocates, while ensuring all students, not just those identified as at-risk or as having dyslexia, learn to read. Keywords: dyslexia, literacy instruction, K-12 teachers, teacher educators, legislation
INTRODUCTION It is important higher education literacy teacher educators and K-12 teachers understand key terms and concepts used within recent dyslexia legislation that has spread across the nation and not just the narrative presented by dyslexia advocates (Worthy et al., 2017). A complete understanding of the issue and key terminology will ensure literacy professionals are fully equipped to align their programs with the legislative mandates and can knowledgeably speak with lawmakers and state department of education regulators about dyslexia and reading instruction moving forward. This is especially important as Worthy and colleagues (2017) note, the “dyslexia discourse” is currently being “propagated” within “closed circles” of tightly connected organizations who intentionally exclude teacher educators, teachers, and use language that can intimate those on the outside (p. 66). Additionally, it is important for teacher educators and teachers to be in a position to support all students, including those at risk for or identified as having dyslexia, in light of what we know from actual “evidence” rather than “ideology” upon which reading laws and policies are too often crafted (Allington, 2005; Worthy et al., 2017). Currently, over 40 states have enacted dyslexia legislation (Johnston & Scanlon, 2020). The laws are in response to lobbying efforts by dyslexia advocates primarily made up of parent groups, dyslexia
professional associations, and private companies that provide tutoring services and instructional materials for use with students identified as dyslexic (Gabriel, 2020). Through well-coordinated efforts, these groups created a narrative to push forward their agenda related to dyslexia (Worthy et al., 2017). According to Gabriel (2020) and Johnston and Scanlon (2020), they successfully raised concerns with legislators across the country about reading challenges they claim are experienced by large numbers of K-12 students. They believe such reading challenges result from an under-identification of students with dyslexia and the failure to deliver a specific type of instruction to all students within the general education population (Gabriel, 2020). Central to their concerns is the way decoding is taught (Johnston & Scanlon, 2020). Advocates assert their claims are backed by “the science of reading” (SOR), which they narrowly recognize as almost exclusively made up of basic scientific studies (Gabriel, 2020; Johnston & Scanlon, 2020). They point to studies involving fMRI brain scans of word learning as evidence that the instructional approaches they favor are the “solution” for teaching decoding to students identified as “at risk” or diagnosed with dyslexia (Gabriel, 2020; Worthy et al., 2017). Their argument is problematic because evidence from medical studies conducted within a lab does not equal evidence for the science of reading instruction (Shanahan, 2020). In addition, their argument is built upon misinformation – inaccurate or misleading definitions
