Hi Valeria,
Thank you for reaching out. Navigating a recent diagnosis and the IEP process can be a stressful time for a parent, and it's difficult to overstate the importance of your daughter learning how to read proficiently. I want to first be clear that there’s no amount of time- even if it was the entire school day- that would allow me to promise that your daughter will “catch up” with her peers, as every child is wonderfully unique. I also want to weave in some caution around the idea of catching up. Dyslexia is a lifelong condition. Regardless of what her test scores say, reading might always be more effortful for her, and she might always need additional time, support, and strategies for reading, spelling, and related tasks like word retrieval. Your advocacy and her intervention can help mitigate these difficulties and help her learn to read proficiently, however.
While I will circle back to the amount of time allocated for intervention, I also want to lead with the fact that this is only one of many variables that will impact your daughter’s (or any struggling reader’s) rate of progress. Her age at identification, as well as the severity of her struggles will greatly impact how she responds to intervention. Your daughter’s cognitive skills, language abilities, attention, and motivation will also contribute to the rate of her literacy development. The quality of instruction she receives in her classroom as well as the alignment of her special education programming with that instruction could be a factor. And of course the quality of the intervention itself, and how well it targets her specific, individual needs while in the group of students will impact its effectiveness.
It’s easy to hone in on the time allocated for her intervention, because it is one variable that is so succinctly spelled out in an IEP, and potentially one of the easiest to advocate a change for.
Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula of the most effective frequency and duration of intervention for dyslexic students. I would cautiously say that the 90 minutes you describe is on the low side of the typical range I would expect, but not abnormal or shocking. Also keep in mind that the time she spends in intervention is time she is missing with the rest of her class. This might be an academic subject, or it might be time that allows for enrichment in nonacademic areas- time that she may feel confident, engaged, and refreshed during. A balance to meet all of her needs as a child is necessary, so try not to think of maximizing intervention time as the gold standard.
To summarize, I can understand why you are questioning this recommendation. Your daughter’s literacy development will impact her the rest of her life, and early intervention is imperative. Three, thirty-minute group sessions seems a bit on the low side, but again, it’s not necessarily insufficient. Remember that IEPs are scheduled annually as a minimum cadence to meet, not a maximum. You have the right to call another meeting to discuss her progress and request to adjust her services as needed.
Before advocating for a change right now, ask yourself and/or your IEP team some additional questions, such as:
- What will she be missing in the classroom during these 90 minutes?
- If a higher frequency of intervention is possible, what would she be missing on those days?
- How many students will be in her small group?
- How closely will they be matched in terms of instructional needs?
- Do her proposed IEP goals, and therefore corresponding instruction, align with the needs outlined in her school and/or private educational assessments?
- What program will she be using in the intervention? How is it different from (and how does it align with) the curriculum used in her classroom?
The above isn’t a mutually exclusive list, but will hopefully get you thinking about how to see the frequency of her intervention as one important variable- but not the only. 90 minutes of a great, targeted intervention will always beat three hours of mediocre instruction. Continue to maintain communication with your child's IEP team. Your presence and support is invaluable.
