According to data from Idaho Education Recovery, over 60% of Idaho students are performing below the expected reading level for their grade.
In addition, Idaho also ranks 38th out of 43 states in terms of reading recovery between 2019 and 2024. The concept of reading recovery refers to the initiative of bringing students’ reading skills back to pre-pandemic levels.
Since 2022, Idaho’s legislature has passed house bills requiring Idaho’s state department of education to provide a statewide screening measure to identify students with characteristics of dyslexia.
In response to this, Boise State University’s College of Education faculty created a one-credit program to provide training for educators to help identify and support young learners who may experience symptoms of dyslexia.
College of Education Faculty member Carolyn Cort, emphasized the importance of equipping teacher candidates with the right training.
“They’re learning about dyslexia way earlier in their program,” Cort said. “Getting little doses of it in each of the content areas that they learn more about teaching practices and intervention practices, so that by the time they graduate, they are well prepared to be able to meet the needs of all the kids in their classroom.”
According to the Idaho Department of Education, around 20% of all students have some characteristics of dyslexia.
The program is a one-credit course that follows Idaho law mandating teachers and administrators, K-8, requiring to earn at least one credit of “professional development identifying characteristics of dyslexia.”
Cort explained one of the strategies used to help students with dyslexia is structured literacy, which teaches students explicitly the code of written language, aimed to help students decode and encode words for reading and spelling.
Cort, who’s been an educator for 30 years, discussed the importance of training for dyslexia in education, explaining the lack of such training in the past prevented teachers like herself from recognizing dyslexia in students.
Sherry Disbuke, assistant dean for Teacher Education in the College of Education, highlighted the significance of this program in impacting secondary teachers and secondary students.
“If they’re not able to read the textbooks, if they’re not able to read the articles or the materials their instructors are giving them, they’re not going to be able to show what they know in that content area and learn appropriately,” Disbuke said.
Disbuke added it’s important for administrators and principals to be informed as well.
“Making sure that they understand how critical explicit literacy instruction is, teaching that structured literacy, teaching foundational literacy concepts are so that they go into the classroom to observe their teachers, they can understand what they’re looking for in instruction in structured literacy approach,” Disbuke said.
Carissa Schlachter, Boise State University alum and fifth-grade teacher at Riverstone International School, is among the many educators who received the training program while at Boise State.
Schlachter says with her class size, around 20 fifth-grade students, allows her to implement various intervention strategies such as a team teaching model. With three teachers, Schlachter says this allows for more one-on-one support during work time.
“It’s kind of interesting, because our position in this school, and especially in this class, we are really at a benefit with three adults and 20 kids to be able to have those interventions with those students more often than not,” Schlachter said.
In addition, Schlachter mentions she uses technology tools like “Diffit” to adjust articles to different reading levels, ensuring students are still informed by the content but at their own reading ability.
Schlachter shared her experience as a student teacher for Riverstone International School during the pandemic, explaining how the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online learning had an impact on younger students’ learning development.
“Especially in that kindergarten, first grade, second grade, when those kids were in those grades during COVID, we saw that’s where they really get a lot of their foundational literacy skills,” Schlachter said. “They weren’t getting the same quality and that’s not due to the lack of teachers, it was just the whole situation the whole world was in.”
Going forward, Schlachter says she hopes to see rural schools and Title I schools benefit from additional teacher training to help support students with dyslexia.
“I think that would be like my one thing to put out, that would be really cool and something that I think Idaho needs in general,” Schlachter said. “Obviously, all students need support and all teachers need training, but I think that’s where the big need is in the state.”
