NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – All children in New York City public schools will be screened for dyslexia, officials announced Thursday.
Starting this fall, students at 80 elementary and 80 middle schools will take part in short, adaptive literacy screenings as part of a pilot program, with targeted interventions given when necessary.
“We are going to have the largest, most comprehensive approach to supporting students with dyslexia in the country,” the mayor said at a City Hall news conference announcing the plan. The event was held on Dyslexia Awareness Day.
“We’re going to identify it early, give them the support early and ensure that they can have the right support as they move throughout their education,” Adams said.
Providing a universal dyslexia screening program is an equity issue given the cost of the screenings, the mayor said.
“This is going to remove that barrier and ensure that every child in every ZIP code receives the screen and with it the help they need,” Adams said.
The mayor has made his own struggle a cornerstone of his education agenda. The mayor’s dyslexia went undiagnosed while he was a student in the city’s public schools. He wasn’t diagnosed until he was in college.
“I think if I would have had the support earlier, right now we would not be saying, just ‘Mr. Mayor,’ you’d probably be saying, ‘Mr. President,’” Adams said.
Schools Chancellor David Banks said the plan will require a major change. Over the next year, all schools will be asked to switch to a phonics-based literacy curriculum with planned professional development for all educators.
In addition, Literacy Academy Collective in P.S. 161 in the Bronx and Lab School for Family Literacy in P.S. 125 in Manhattan will both offer specialized programs for students with dyslexia and other language-based learning disabilities, officials said.
The Department of Education will move to build programs at additional schools with the goal of having at least one school offering specialized instruction in each borough by fall 2023.
Dyslexia is a learning disorder that involves difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words, according to the Mayo Clinic.
At Thursday's announcement, mom Naomi Peña became emotional speaking about her four children with dyslexia. She co-founded the Literacy Academy Collective to help support kids.
“For the past 16 years, I know all too well the pain of trying to advocate to support my children to read, because our schools do not use structured literacy to teach children to read,” Peña said.
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