Documenting Dyslexia
Documenting Dyslexia for a student identified as special education in an ARD:

The ARD serves as the multidisciplinary team who determines dyslexia assessment, needs, identification, and services.

The ARD committee should document that the student has been identified with dyslexia or that the student has a reading disability that exhibits characteristics consistent with dyslexia (Dyslexia Handbook,
2007).

The ARD committee must include appropriate reading instruction on the student
’s IEP which includes the
Components of Instruction provided in Chapter !V of The Dyslexia Handbook-Revised 2007 on p. 11-
13 (Dyslexia Handbook, 2007).

If already receiving services for one particular area of need, the ARD committee needs to convene to recommend that the student be assessed for dyslexia and must give parents notice of assessment, procedural safeguard rights, and option of consent for the evaluation (Dyslexia Handbook, 2007).

Consideration of placement for services including entry level assessments should be documented through ARD committee and should only be conducted with parent consent and notice of procedural safeguards.
Provision of Dyslexia Instruction

Teachers who provide appropriate instruction for students with dyslexia must be trained in instructional strategies that utilize individual, intensive, multisensory, phonetic methods and a variety of writing and spelling components (Dyslexia Handbook, 2007).

If the student is found eligible for special education in the area of reading, the ARD committee must include appropriate reading instruction (components of instruction) on the student
’s IEP (Dyslexia
Handbook, 2007).

If the student is receiving instruction through both special education and general education for dyslexia, collaboration between all teachers who teach reading to ensure generalization of the methodology identified as reading intervention (Dyslexia Handbook, 2007).

The ARD committee is responsible for the consistency and the determination of the most appropriate environment of instruction (Dyslexia Handbook, 2007). The least restrictive environment should be considered and should address the following components of instruction as noted in The Dyslexia
Handbook-Revised 2007.
Components of Instructions include:

Phonemic Awareness

Graphophonemic Knowledge (Phonics)

Language Structure

Linguistic Proficiency and Fluency

Strategy Oriented

Provided through instruction approaches of:

Explicit, direct instruction that is systematic, sequential, and cumulative

Individualized instruction

Intensive, highly concentrated instruction

Meaning-based instruction

Multisensory instruction
Options of Service from Least Restrictive to Most Restrictive:
1.
Speech with Dyslexia —Dyslexia services provided from General Education (documentation of services in
ARD only and no IEP)
2.
Reading Disability (SPED) with Dyslexia
—Dyslexia services provided within Special Education IEP’s reading instructional components (documentation of services and specific IEP for reading in ARD)
3.
Reading Disability (SPED) with Dyslexia
– Dyslexia services supplemented from General Education with core reading instruction components provided by special Education (documentation of services and specific IEP for reading in ARD).