POLICY AND ADVOCACY BY JULIE COLLINS
Oklahoma Legislative Updates Regarding Reading Education Reading education is currently a hot topic, attracting the attention of parents, teachers, and policy makers. The goal of this column is to bring readers up to date on recent actions in the state regarding reading education in the state of Oklahoma before the next legislative session begins in February. The Oklahoma Dyslexia and Education Task Force was created by House Bill 2008, authored by Speaker McCall and Representative Stanislawski in 2017, and amended by House Bill 3313, authored by Representatives Baker and (Mike) Osburn and Senator Bice in 2018. The task force was charged with creating a dyslexia handbook to provide guidance for schools, students and parents in Oklahoma. The task force was composed of twenty-one stakeholders, including parents, administrators, teachers, a student, members of the Oklahoma Legislature, an Academic Language Therapist Instructor, a counselor, a speech-language pathologist, a school psychologist, a professor, and representatives from the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE), Cooperative Council for Oklahoma Schools (CCOSA), Office of Educational Quality and Accountability (OEQA), and the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. The Oklahoma Dyslexia and Education Task Force met during the 2018-2019 school year to create the Oklahoma Dyslexia Handbook: A Guide to Literacy Development and Reading Struggles was completed in June, 2019. The handbook is now housed with the Oklahoma State Department of Education, in the Special Education Division. You can access a copy of the handbook on their website. House Bill 1228, authored by Representatives Sanders, Albright, (Josh) West, Boles, Townley, and Lawson, and Senator Smalley (2019), adds dyslexia professional development to the requirements in every school district, beginning in 2020. The handbook is intended to provide information for these information sessions each year. The minimum requirements of these sessions are to provide awareness of the characteristics of dyslexia, effective instruction for students with dyslexia, and information about available resources for teachers, parents, and students. The handbook is also expected to be a source of information for parents. Senate Bill 601, authored by Senator Stanislawski and Representative Nollan (2019), revised the requirements of the Reading Sufficiency Act. One of the changes is that students in kindergarten who are not meeting grade level expectations by mid-year based on approved assessments shall have a program of reading instruction written for them. This bill also requires that the grade level performance of third-grade students to determine promotion and retention shall be based only on the portions of the statewide assessment measuring reading foundations and processes, and not any other language arts portions of the assessment. Senate Bill 194, authored by Senator Bice and Representative Miller (2019), removed the requirement for Early Childhood and Elementary Education candidates enrolled in institutions within the Oklahoma State System of Higher Education to pass the Oklahoma Reading Test prior to graduation. Candidates in Special Education program continue with this requirement.
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