Most teachers and parents delay evaluating students for dyslexia, or other learning disabilities, because they think children will outgrow whatever reading and spelling difficulties they have. This is not true. The Connecticut Longitudinal Study demonstrated that 3 out of 4 students who struggle with reading and spelling in elementary school, continue to struggle as they get older. By high school, these students’ difficulties can no longer be overlooked. Without early identification and early intervention, these students will continue to struggle into adulthood.

Early intervention programs should be researched based and contain the following:

• Systematic, explicit, and intensive instruction in phoneme awareness-identifying and manipulation the sounds in our spoken language.
• Systematic, explicit, and intensive instruction in phonics- how letters and groups of letters make sounds in our spoken language.
• Systematic, explicit, and intensive instruction in decoding, spelling, sight words, vocabulary words, and reading comprehension strategies.

It is crucial that any early…