Please watch our video!  http://youtu.be/qxcznYus8uQ

Kansas SB 410  establishes that students with dyslexia receive research-based reading intervention, as well as screening children from Pre-K to 2nd grade.  

We are a group of KU Social Work Students trying to rally everyone in Kansas together to recognize that literacy fights poverty.  We want to be the voice for the vulnerable and oppressed population of individuals with dyslexia.  Dyslexic students in Kansas often fall through the cracks, as there is no policy to identify or provide specific interventions for students with dyslexia in the school setting.  We believe that passing Kansas SB 410 will ensure early identification and treatment of dyslexic students in school.  Without successful treatment, dyslexia leads to illiteracy, and illiteracy leads to poverty.  In order for dyslexic students to graduate, become lifelong learners, and achieve their full potential, they must receive effective treatment early in school.

Kansas educators are among the best in the nation, but we believe there is room for improvement in the education of students with dyslexia.  Currently in Kansas schools, there is no policy to recognize dyslexia, so that they can receive the reading intervention based on "best practices" (research that has shown those methods are effective).  This lack of policy is a form of systematic oppression, which causes individuals with dyslexia to graduate functionally illiterate, affecting all facets of the individual's life -including the inability to earn a living that exceeds the poverty line.

Please allow SB 410 out of Committee so the voters have a chance to be heard.