DDON submission to OHRC Right to Read inquiry

Decoding Dyslexia Ontario made its submission to the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read Inquiry on April 14, 2020.

Read the full submission

Download the attached PDF to read our full submission.

Summary

Decoding Dyslexia Ontario (DDON) welcomed the OHRC’s October 2019 launch of the Right to Read Inquiry. Since 2014, DDON has been hearing from parents in Ontario about the daily struggles their children face to obtain identification, accessible in-class instruction, appropriate reading remediation, timely accommodations, and psycho-educational assessments.

Decoding Dyslexia Ontario believes, and will provide scientific evidence, that there is abundant room for improvement in the primary literacy educational services provided to all Ontario children, particularly focusing on the subset of children – our children – that this inquiry addresses, the reading disabled.

The reading disabled are those children that obtain very poor reading skills growth in terms of reading achievement measures.

Decoding Dyslexia Ontario endorses the OHRC focus on the educational elements of:

1. Universal design for learning (UDL)
2. Mandatory early screening
3. Reading intervention programs
4. Effective accommodation, and
5. Psycho-educational assessments (if required).

DDON believes, and the human rights legislation, legal precedent, and science supports, that these elements provide the starting point to make accessible, and level, the public education playing field.

Finally, the six (6) to seventeen (17) percent of children with dyslexia in the Province of Ontario matter.

They have the same right to an education, the same Right to Read, that every other child in this province enjoys. The way we teach reading is the key for a child with dyslexia, providing access to a quality education and offering the same opportunity to success in school and in life.

Table of contents

Executive Summary

Organization Background – Decoding Dyslexia Ontario

Why Ontario’s Education Policy, Curriculum and Service Delivery Must Change

Ontario Education System – Accessibility

Use of the term Dyslexia

Reading Intervention

1.      Universal design for learning (UDL)

2.      Mandatory early screening

3.      Reading intervention programs

4.      Effective accommodation

5.      Psycho-educational assessments

Conclusion

References