Channelview, TX: "Dyslexia identification rate increased more than threefold in 10 yrs"

May 2, 2025, Houston Chronicle: More Texas students are diagnosed with dyslexia, but TEA grants and new tech give some schools a leg up 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/news/content/ar-AA1E2Mlc?ocid=sapphireappshare 

Two rules guided a recent professional development session for 20 Humble ISD dyslexia and special education led by a Harvard education researcher last month.

First, no shoes during training, a rule designed to keep the session casual.

Second, be willing to pivot if something isn't working.

With periodic changes to the dyslexia handbook for the past two decades, new laws – including a recent mandate that moved dyslexia under the special education umbrella – and the removal of a state-imposed cap on special education in 2017, districts have had to get used to pivoting to continue serving their students. 

The district had already honed in on dyslexia identification and services before the newest law, largely due to its cadre of highly trained, Reading by Design-certified dyslexia interventionists, Friendswood ISD's Executive Director of Special Services Dahria Driskell said. 

With the grant, the district's special education staff was given reading-specific professional development. Many of its secondary teachers and dyslexia interventionists also received more in-depth training through the Neuhaus Education Center, a Houston-based nonprofit that specializes in reading instruction. 

"(The grant) gave them another layer because all kids learn differently," Elementary Special Education Coordinator Amy Tallman said. "We want as many tools as we can get to aid students, and we were able to access that."

Similarly, Humble ISD received two $1 million grants, one in 2018 and one last year, which was the highest amount awarded to any district that year, Doolin said. It was a competitive application process, which she likened to a college application. 

"Recognizing that there were so many changes in the state, in the dyslexia handbook and legislation, we really wanted to make sure our interventionists (and) all stakeholders were educated and prepared in order to roll with these changes," Doolin said.

The grant allowed the district the time and resources to partner with Region 4 to provide more training for its dyslexia staff, by providing Region 4's "Delving Deeper" series that included up to 100 hours of coursework for dyslexia interventionists. 

Doolin called it a "choose-your-own adventure" for staff. Some completed the required course credits, while others did extra courses based on their interest or in an area they struggled with.

The funding also provided avenues for elementary dysgraphia specialists to get handwriting certifications that they might not have otherwise been able to get. After identifying a void in dysgraphia remediation in 2016, Humble ISD decided it needed to create its own, Doolin said. Since then, they've presented to other districts across the state about how they administer the program to students.

Most importantly, the grant allowed the district to hire substitutes so that the interventionist staff could attend training without compromising the integrity of the intervention programs.  

But these grants are hard to obtain and were only available for two years, based on HB 1525 that created them in the 87th legislative session. Over the past two years, the grant program made just under $50 million available to districts, according to the TEA's grant opportunities website, to bolster their staff training programs, and in turn, their dyslexia intervention. This year, however, no such grants were available. 

Some hope that proposed changes to Texas' special education funding system could help districts identify more students and plug the $1.7 billion gap in costs that districts are paying outside of their allotment.

"Until the pot's right there, we're going to continue to struggle," Driskell said. "Districts are always going to do what's right and necessary for kids, but it's at a cost somewhere."

Identification challenges 

For districts short on funding or stunted by outdated reading and dyslexia curricula, higher identification rates remain out of reach.

Channelview ISD's dyslexia identification rate has increased more than threefold in 10 years. But it remained at 3.6% during the 2023-2024 school year, lingering just above half of the state average.

But it remained at 3.6% during the 2023-2024 school year, lingering just above half of the state average.

Districts receive an additional 10 percent of their per-pupil basic allotment for students with dyslexia. That came to just over $200,000 in 2023-2024 - just enough to pay a few qualified instructors, Channelview ISD's Special Services Executive Director Ryan Wheeler said.

The district has struggled to reach recommended student-to-teacher ratios in its dyslexia intervention groups as a result, Wheeler said.

"That doesn't come anywhere close to meeting the needs that we have for providing services to these students," Wheeler said.

Still, Wheeler said the district has bolstered its dyslexia identification strategies this school year. The district's 10 full-time dyslexia instructors and specialists have identified 34 additional students with dyslexia this year and conducted around 150 evaluations for dyslexic students transitioning from Section 504 to special education, Wheeler said. . . .

"When I came in 2022, we really began to put systems in place to help identify students who need additional supports," Hill said. "We have witnessed an increase, but our goal is to make certain that our students are given what they need, and likewise, that our staff are trained to be able to provide the level of support to meet that increase."

Texas schools have until the end of the school year to shift all students receiving dyslexia intervention under accomodation plans to special education plans, if they qualify. It's a transition that has cost districts time and money, but advocates who lobbied for the bill say it is in the best interest of dyslexic students and the standard practice of other states. 

Constant changes to the dyslexia handbook can be cumbersome for districts like Friendswood. But bringing those students under the special education umbrella will involve dyslexia specialists in the evaluation process and provide more "teeth" to dyslexia instruction from inside the general education classroom, Tallman said.

Implementing new technology

As districts strove to increase dyslexia identification rates over the past decade, they met another hurdle: a greater need for dyslexia intervention. But when done properly and by Texas Dyslexia Handbook standards, such intervention can include time-consuming paperwork and grading. 

To make dyslexia intervention more efficient, and to provide better data to analyze its efficacy, Humble ISD partnered with the app UCN Learn, created by Amir Bar, which can be used alongside Region 4's Reading by Design intervention program, created in 2018. 

Originally from Israel, Bar got his start in dyslexia innovation 10 years ago and has a unique perspective as someone who was diagnosed with dyslexia and attended Neuhaus adult literacy classes after moving to the U.S.

Bar has served on the Houston chapter of the International Dyslexia Association's board and was selected for the committee that reviews updates to the Texas Dyslexia Handbook.

When interviewing experts in public schools, to work on the app's prototype, he was disheartened to learn that many felt they didn't have time to try something new. Then he realized, maybe time was the problem. 

"Dyslexia intervention, especially in public school, is 120 minutes per week. The good news, these are required, but the bad news is they don't have a single extra minute to provide the students," Bar said. "So I'm thinking, if we can build the right tools to help with those extra practices (we) can move the needle."

Three years in, the app is used by more than 150 Texas districts. Humble ISD uses the app district-wide, and for its dyslexia curriculum, Doolin said the app has been a game-changer. 

Some features include a progress report, generated by the app in part through artificial intelligence. Staff show the reports to students so they can see how they are doing, and they even show them to parents sometimes. But instead of taking hours to compile the reports by hand for all the students going through the program, the app completes the same report in seconds. 

"With the click of a button, our (interventionists) can have a progress report. So that has been crucial," Doolin said. "Being able to see a progress report with graphs quantifying what progress looks like has been amazing."

It also includes an attendance log feature, mastery checks and a way to show interventionists how potential students would fit together in a group, comparing their skill levels to find the small group pairings that might work for all students. 

"One potential issue, especially in public schools, is that the groupings are not optimal, and you can have one student that's struggling more than the other students in this group, (and) they may suffer," Bar said. "We help you place the student with the right peers, so I can compare the student result to a potential group and see, are they performing below, above or the same as the group?" 

District leaders are now working with Bar to try to streamline some of the components necessary for special education Independent Educational Programs that will likely increase in number as more students fall under the special education umbrella for dyslexia. 

"We've been able to go to him and say, ‘Hey, our (interventionists) need this. They are stretched thin. We need efficient processes for them to be able to do the work that they need to do and not have to struggle to maintain various things as part of state requirements,'" Doolin said. "Having this tool has been so valuable for us."