Georgia and Massachusetts Advance Dyslexia Screening and Intervention

State boards of education are well placed to advocate for more young children to be screened for dyslexia, a disability that by some measures affects up to 20 percent of the U.S. population. Boards can also ensure that identified students receive effective interventions, as those in Massachusetts and Georgia have done. Board members collaborated with state officials, practitioners, and experts to develop multipronged early screening and intervention policies.

Misdiagnoses of dyslexia and diagnoses that are missed entirely are common, partly because reading ability and disability are on a continuum, according to researcher Richard K. Wagner. Some laws and practices for screening and intervention exclude or neglect many struggling readers, resulting in disproportionate underdiagnosis in children of color and children in poverty. …