Tag: Dyslexia

By Ann Schimke | Chalkbeat Colorado Bri Luna said her daughter started kindergarten with the nickname “Little Miss Sunshine” and by middle school was on antidepressants because of her reading struggles. Mary Sailas said her second grade son, who shifted from foot to foot next to her, told her he’d choose the ability to read over the superpower of flying. And in a particularly heart-breaking moment, Amy Thompson described how her high school-age daughter took her life in 2022 after years of floundering in reading and in school. The three mothers were among about 10 Colorado parents and advocates who begged the State Board of Education at the group’s monthly meeting Wednesday for mandatory statewide dyslexia screening. READ THE FULL STORY AT CHALKBEAT COLORADO

By Ann Schimke | Chalkbeat Colorado When teacher Cindy Haralson would point at her preschool class with a stuffed owl named Baby Echo, most children quickly repeated the letter, word, and sound they’d just heard her say. Think “B, bat, b.” But one little girl — a good listener and natural problem-solver — stared blankly at her teacher day after day last year, unable to reproduce what she was hearing and seeing. Haralson recalled the girl looking at her classmates, as if to say, “How do you guys do that? How do you know that?” The girl’s struggle with alphabet lessons was the kind of red flag that can signal problems learning to read, problems that Haralson believes too often go unaddressed for years. “It seems like we always wait till kindergarten or first grade, and somet...