Spring ISD has identified students with dyslexia at one of the lowest rates in the state over the past several years, potentially leaving hundreds of students without help needed to overcome their learning disability.

State data shows Spring, which serves about 34,000 students in northern Harris County, reported 2 percent of its students had dyslexia and received special education support for their reading challenges. If Spring identified students with dyslexia at the statewide rate of 6 percent, about 1,360 more students in the district would receive support.

There is no state or national benchmark to determine whether a district has enough students with dyslexia, which causes students to struggle with connecting letters with sounds and decoding written words.

Still, Spring’s pattern of identifying students with dyslexia falls well below state and national trends. Spring’s rate in 2023-24 ranked third-lowest among Texas’ 50 largest districts, ahead of only the IDEA Public Schools charter network and Socorro ISD in El Paso. Nationwide, most researchers estimate that about 10 percent of people have dyslexia, though estimates vary based on the criteria used for diagnosing someone with dyslexia.

Meanwhile, many Spring students, about 85 percent of whom are considered economically disadvantaged by the state, struggle with reading in school. State standardized test scores show less than one-third of third graders were reading on grade level in 2023-24, a strong predictor of whether students will graduate and enroll in college. One-half of students met the standard across the region and state.

Spring administrators declined an interview request for this article. In a statement, Spring’s executive director of special services, Ayana Lebron, said the district expects its number of students identified as having dyslexia to increase following the passage of a state law in 2023 that reclassified dyslexia as a learning disability under special education law.

“As we work to align our evaluation practices with the state of Texas’ updated requirements … we anticipate an increase in dyslexia-related identifications,” Lebron said in an email. “However, our current data shows that the representation of students identified with dyslexia in the district is lower than expected when compared to state trends.”

Cost of missed diagnosis

For decades, students with dyslexia often went undiagnosed, leaving them to struggle with reading challenges. The state-approved Texas Dyslexia Handbook notes that students with dyslexia may also experience “anxiety, anger, depression, lack of motivation or low self-esteem.” 

In 2017, the Texas Legislature passed a law mandating that all kindergarteners and first graders must be screened for dyslexia by trained professionals. Then, in 2023, the reclassification of dyslexia as a learning disability meant schools must develop a written plan and bolster the amount of resources given to students diagnosed with dyslexia.

Since the passage of the first law, the rate of Texas students identified as having dyslexia increased from 3 to 6 percent. Spring’s dyslexia rate has ranged from 1 to 2 percent during that time.

If dyslexia isn’t caught early in life, difficulties with reading can snowball for students, said Ola Ozernov-Palchik, a research scientist specializing in developmental dyslexia at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research. 

Students who aren’t properly diagnosed are more likely to experience anxiety, drop out of school, never attend college and interact with the criminal justice system, she said. Ozernov-Palchik cited a 2000 study which found roughly 1-in-2 Texas inmates showed reading difficulties associated with dyslexia.

“It’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse,” Ozernov-Palchik said. “The more you read, the better reader you become, the higher level you read, you get access to a higher vocabulary. … If you do not learn how to read, you’re going to lose out (on) access to all the other subjects.” 

Minimal district oversight

In Texas, there are few checks on whether school districts are accurately identifying students with disabilities. The Texas Education Agency analyzes large amounts of academic data related to students with disabilities, but it rarely conducts in-depth investigations to determine whether districts are following state special education laws. The U.S. Department of Education also investigates few districts for violations of federal law.

As a result, the burden heavily falls on families to advocate for children with disabilities. Parents and guardians can file a complaint against their child’s school district to the state, but it’s a lengthy process and only addresses their child’s issue.

“That’s a shortcoming of the system,” said Steve Aleman, a policy specialist for Disability Rights Texas and a supervising attorney for the organization’s education team.

Spring students already diagnosed with dyslexia still receive extra instruction in reading as the district gets up to speed with the new state guidelines, Lebron said in a statement. She added that district leaders will give parents of dyslexic students the option to reevaluate their children for more additional support before the end of the school year.

“Parental input, combined with the expertise of teachers, counselors, and support staff who work closely with students, plays a vital role in identifying dyslexia,” Lebron said in a statement.

“These individuals, as the first point of contact, are critical in observing students' progress, reviewing data, and identifying areas of difficulty. It’s important to note that identification is no longer solely the responsibility of special education staff, as they often do not work with students before identification.”

Ozernov-Palchik said many districts across the nation struggle with properly screening students with dyslexia, even if they’re using high-quality evaluation tools.

“Districts often use the correct terminology, but it all boils down to implementation,” Ozernov-Palchik said. “How are the screeners implemented? Is there sufficient training? Do the teachers know how to respond to, how to interpret the data? Those are the questions that are asked, and often where districts break down.”

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