Meeting Public Comments

Sandy Wilson [Citizen Engagement]

Citizen Engagement declares IN FAVOR of SSB 3069. Please advance the bill.

Nicole Prati []

Reading tutor in favor of Bill SB 3069. Its important that our professors and teachers learn AND learn to teach children the logic of the English code so that they can blend and segment words on a page. No more cueing, no more predicting, no more beanie animals who teach children ineffective methods to encode and decode words.

Colleen Wieland []

As a SpeechLanguage Pathologist & Mother of an 8 year old girl (3rd Grader) who was recently diagnosed with Dyslexia, I am in SUPPORT of this bill. We have watched our daughter struggle to learn how to read and the cueing and memorizing strategies failed her. (Please note this was not due to the teachers and I do not blame them. They were teaching with the tools they had). Our daughter was told to continue to work hard and that she would eventually catch up to he peers. Despite reading intervention since Kindergarten and summer intensive programs, she continued to regress and as a result, she began to demonstrate anxiety symptoms at school, which intensified as she aged. She underwent extensive medical and neurological testing which fortunately came back negative, however, identified there was anxiety and we needed to identify the cause. During this entire time, she continued with her reading programs at school, was told she was fine, that there was nothing wrong with her, and that she needed to continue to work hard and practice reading utilizing the strategies taught in school. We spent countless nights in tears and fights. I watched her struggle to sound out words. She didn't know HOW to sound out words. I watched her reach and grasp to make up words, in an effort to try to get it right. I watched her lose her place; I watched her scan frantically through the pictures and words to see if she could make sense of it all without knowing the true answer; I watched her cry and say she was not like the other kids and that she was stupid and she just couldn't do it. We continued to speak with her teachers and implemented all the strategies suggested and continued like this through 3rd grade. While in 3rd grade, we sought out a private diagnostic evaluation and she was officially diagnosed with Dyslexia. We had lost our daughter's trust. All along she was trying to tell us there was something wrong, something hard, and we missed it. We kept telling her she could do it and she just needed to try harder but the truth was she couldn't. She needed an explicit and systematic approach to learn HOW TO READ. And that's exactly what we are doing now and she is starting to smile again and she is now learning HOW to read! She's in 3rd Grade. We have a lot of work to do but now we are on the right path and we are going to get her there. This bill is about more than reading. It's about supporting our teachers and listening to our kids and giving the them the support and tools they need to succeed. Learning to read needs explicit and systematic instruction and teaching. It is not just learned or absorbed. When our kids aren't able to read and they start to stand out amongst their peers and they start to show us signs of struggle and they are repeatedly told there is nothing wrong and that they just need to work harder they suffer. They suffer greatly. Dyslexia affects a child's reading but it also affects their life: sports, piano lessons, play dates, ordering from a menu, church participation. We MUST give our teachers the tools they need to SUPPORT and TEACH our kids HOW TO READ. We MUST support our teachers and empower them to identify the signs and symptoms of Dyslexia. We MUST teach our kids HOW TO READ by following what we now know about the science of reading and utilizing an explicit and systematic approach. This Bill will improve a child's reading and quality of life. Thank you for reading. Sincerely,Colleen Wieland,M.A. CCCSLP MotherAdvocateSpeechLanguage Pathologist

Theodore Wieland []

As a parent of a child with dyslexia I support this bill.

Teri Patrick []

I support this bill. We have lost a generation of readers because of reading methods adopted in schools a few decades ago the whole language and Lucy Calkins method. It was a miserable failure and we are suffering the consequences. I urge you to listen to "Sold A Story" to learn more about the history https://features.apmreports.org/soldastory/. My district, West Des Moines, reports 77% proficiency in reading with their elementary school proficiency scores of 55%, 62%, 2 schools at 65%, with the highest score of 75%. This is extremely concerning where a little less than half of the students are not proficient in reading (source IA DOE Website) In grades k3 kids learn to read, and 412 Kids read to learn. How can we expect students to be successful in the later grades if they have not mastered reading in the younger years. There have been countless studies on the lifelong impacts if kids do not learn to read in those early years. I spoke with an elementary school educator where Science of Reading was recently adopted and she said she was seeing outstanding growth in her students reading proficiencies. We owe it to the next generation to ensure we utilize teaching methods where kids are seeing successes, not only for reading but other subjects as well (language arts and math). I would also suggest we look at the writing programs as well "Problems With Lucy Calkins Curriculum Go Beyond ReadingTo Writing" https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2021/11/21/problemswithlucycalkinscurriculumgobeyondreadingtowriting/?sh=6d3b504050c9

Teri Patrick []

I support this bill Attached is some additional information on 3rd Grade proficiencies at the 3rd Grade level across Iowa: https://educationconsumers.org/schoolperformanceiowa/

Gabby F [AGWSR High School]

As a mother of a 1st grader and a school board member I can not stress the importance of teaching our children proper reading skills. Our school has implemented phonics for our K4 and I have seen great improvement in my daughters reading. Please vote yes on this bill.

MICHELLE JOHANNSEN []

Please pass SSB3069 as a mother of a child who is dyslexic. I have told the school since she was in pre school something is not right I think she is dyslexic. She is now in 5th grade. We took her to and privately paid for testing only to find out she IS dyslexic. Our school FAILED to help her because "they don't test" for dyslexia. She is catching on and will get better. This could not be more wrong! Teachers need to be taught better. Schools need to provide better for our children. This is not something that is going to go away. 1 in 5 kids have some level of dyslexia. It is time that the state of IA step up.

Kate Niedermann [Lenihan]

As an educator and parent of a dyslexic child, this bill is VERY important. Please pass the bill SSB 3069 so that ALL students have access to the very best education and educators possible. They deserve it!

Amy Tharp []

As a special education teacher and parent, I support the changes in SSB 3069. I have had the unfortunate experience of watching children, especially those with reading difficulties such as dyslexia, fail year after year because they were never explicitly taught to read. I have watched parents cry out for help because they are tired of watching their children fail and our public schools do not have the information or resources to help them. Sadly, I was part of this problem because I never learned to explicitly teach reading. I learned the Science of Reading on my own and have continued to pay outofpocket to learn about Structured Literacy and how to teach children, especially those with reading difficulties, to read. Research has shown that all but a very small percentage of children can learn to read, but this cannot happen without identification and systematic and explicit instruction. We have to stop setting our children up for failure because they deserve our BEST, and what we are doing is not our best. When we know better, we do better ... and it is time that we start doing better!

Stephanie Edgren [ ]

Disclaimer: I am an education and outreach coordinator with the Iowa Reading Research Center. The opinions below are mine. I am not speaking as a representative of the Iowa Reading Research Center.First, I wholeheartedly support this bill! I support it as a parent, as a teacher, as a college instructor, and as an advocate for children.I have a bachelors degree in early childhood education, a masters in education, and both K12 reading specialist and K8 reading endorsements. NONE of these programs taught me HOW to teach reading or HOW to remediate struggling readers using evidencebased practices. I learned to teach reading using a whole language approach and the 3cueing system. I expertly utilized these approaches in teaching kids how to read. Unfortunately, I now know those approaches are ineffective. They do not lead to building the neural pathways in the brain that are necessary for reading. Those approaches train the wrong areas of the brain. While approximately 40% of students learn to read easily or relatively easily, the majority of children require explicit and systematic instruction in all areas of literacy and language to learn to read. This isnt being taught in many classrooms or teacher preparation programs. If you want to learn more about the implications of reading instruction and the brain, Id highly recommend the work of researchers and neuroscientists, including Stanislas Dehaene, Mark Seidenberg, Maryanne Wolf, Guinevere Eden, Bruce McCandliss, to name a few. I taught for 25 years in the K12 public education system in Massachusetts, Florida and Iowa. My experience spans the preschool, elementary, and middle school levels. I also served as an intervention coach and as an instructional coach. My last 3 years in the K12 system I taught 7th grade reading in the same district I had taught first grade. I worked with 7th graders who had been struggling and receiving intervention services for YEARS and they were still struggling readers. I worked with 7th graders who were reading at 1st and 2nd grade but know were struggling. I knew what was taught at the elementary school, the interventions that were in place and how hard the teachers worked to try to remediate reading difficulties so I couldnt understand what was the root of the problem. This set me on the path to figure out why so many students were struggling and what I could do about it. My journey into the science of reading began. Over the last several years I have learned a great deal about reading and the brain, that I wish I had learned in college and in professional development. I have also taught at the college level. During this time I taught literacy courses. I aligned the courses to the science of reading (the research on how children learn to read, why some kids struggle and how can we remediate). During my time at the collegiate level I learned university professors have autonomy in the selection of course topics, objectives, readings, assignments, and field experiences. Many professors do not have the knowledge of evidence based instructional practices and are teaching debunked methods that they used when they were teachers. In many cases, they are not to blame because they cant teach what they dont know, just as teachers cant teach what they dont know. What I do know is that there are professors who refuse and will refuse to update their courses to align with the scientific research if not required by law because they wholeheartedly believe in academic freedom. While academic freedom may be important to some, it should not supercede a childs opportunity to learn how to read. Over the last 2 years I have volunteered my time working with a group of higher education faculty across the US to strengthen reading coursework in teacher prep programs. We organize and host conferences and webinars for faculty with the purpose of supporting faculty to fully incorporate the SOR into their programs. We provide opportunities to build knowledge on the SOR and resources to align coursework with the goal of strengthening how future educators are prepared. There are several different resources to help faculty of teacher preparation programs align their literacy coursework. This work must be done to better prepare preservice teachers to teach not only in Iowa but across the nation. Many states require teachers to pass an exam aligned with reading research to obtain a teaching license. If Iowa preservice teachers arent taught methods aligned with reading research we are setting them up for failure. The key point is that reading is a civil right! ALL students deserve to be taught by teachers who have the knowledge and skills to help them become proficient readers. Literacy = equity. Literacy gives a person a chance in life. Imagine not being able to read and understand your medical appointment summaries, prescriptions, job applications, etc. If Iowa children arent taught how to read we are setting them up for failure. Id like to clear up a few misconceptions Ive heard during the meeting today and previous conversations with other Iowans: SSB 3069 is focused on HOW to teach reading. The 3cueing system has been debunked by scientific research. The science of reading is not a program or curriculum. It is a large body of research, conducted over the last 45 decades, around the world, in multiple languages, and by a variety of disciplines, including neuroscience. There are not many ways to learn how to read. As neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene in his book Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read (2009)It is simply not true that there are hundreds of ways to learn to read when it comes to reading we all have roughly the same brain that imposes the same constraints and the same learning sequence. Readers can use context to aid in comprehension, however using context is not HOW we learn to read. Students need to focus on the words and learn how to decode. English Language Learners likely will fall in the approximately 60% of children who require explicit and systematic instruction in all areas of literacy and language to learn to read. They need to learn how to decode words, not look at pictures to read a word. Pictures and other visuals are often used to help English Language Learners build vocabulary and other language skills. SSB 3069 doesnt state pictures can't be used to build vocabulary. Picture cues cant and shouldnt be used to read words.I encourage all legislators to set aside politics for the sake of Iowa children and vote in support of SSB 3069!Thank you for taking the time to read my comments. Stephanie Edgren