Questions To Ask Your Child's School About Reading Instruction and Intervention
I could go on all day, depending on the situation for your child and what is going on with them individually. But here are a list of questions you can ask if you’re not quite sure where to begin with finding out if your child is receiving appropriate reading and writing instruction at school and if they are receiving any interventions if they’re struggling with learning how to read and/or write and spell. I put these questions together for a parent of a rising fourth grader in Georgia, where we have a state law that requires schools do dyslexia screening 3 times per year. So some of the questions are specific to Georgia’s screening laws, but many states have dyslexia screening processes, and if they don’t, they should!
Questions to ask regarding his reading and writing instruction and intervention:
Was my child (name) screened for dyslexia this past school year? With what screener? Can you send me all dyslexia screener results from at least the past 2 years?
What tier 1 reading instruction program does the school use for teaching reading and writing?
Does the program have a scope and sequence and if so, where are they at with the scope and sequence?
Has (name) been receiving any reading and writing/spelling intervention?
If so, how often? How many times per week? How many minutes per session?
Who is providing the intervention?
What is their experience and training?
Does the school have any teachers with their dyslexia endorsement?
Do you have any teachers with Orton Gillingham training? If so, what level of OG training do they have (i.e. how many hours/what level of certification)
Do you have any teachers with LETRS training?
Can you send me all progress monitoring reports, including any data they have been collecting?
Can you please send me my child’s Nonsense Word Reading rate?
Do you know his/her ORF (Oral Reading Fluency) via CWPM (Correct Words Per Minute)?
Do you know how he's doing with spelling?
These are all good starting-point questions to ask to better understand what type of instruction and intervention your child is receiving. Even the questions they can NOT answer will be telling, in terms of understanding what they know and what they don’t know. If they don’t know the answers to these questions, and if they can’t readily provide you with progress monitoring data, then unfortunately, your struggling reader has probably not been receiving appropriate intervention and support. Regardless of whether or not a student has an IEP or 504, a school should know if they’re struggling to learn to read, write and spell. They should know this from dyslexia screeners, classroom work, standardized assessments and from progress monitoring and rate of progress. Students who are struggling to learn to read and who may have dyslexia need intensive intervention from a highly qualifed educator with strong training in a structured literacy approach. Please keep in mind that these questions were written for a rising fourth grader and the questions would vary some for an older student (although not a lot!).
The answers to these questions (or lack of answers) will help you better understand what’s going on at your child’s school with reading and writing tier-1 (general education classroom) instructino and with their intervention and will help inform what you need to do next, to advocate for stronger support and services.