A 1186: Requires school districts to conduct mandatory early screening for dyslexia for all children commencing in pre-kindergarten or kindergarten and continuing thereafter on an annual basis until each child successfully completes second grade; requires school districts to designate an individual to maintain complete and accurate records containing early screening reports for each child, and to provide resources and materials to the parent and/or guardian of any child who displays indications of dyslexia.

  
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 1186 2025-2026 Regular Sessions  IN ASSEMBLY January 9, 2025 ___________ Introduced by M. of A. SIMON, MEEKS, BORES, RAGA, DAVILA, REYES -- Multi-Sponsored by -- M. of A. BRONSON, R. CARROLL, FALL, GLICK, HUNT- ER, LUPARDO, McDONOUGH, STECK, TAGUE, TAYLOR, WALSH -- read once and referred to the Committee on Education AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to mandatory early screening for dyslexia The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. The education law is amended by adding a new section 319 to 2 read as follows: 3 § 319. Mandatory early screening for dyslexia. 1. All school districts 4 shall be required to conduct full and individual screenings in accord- 5 ance with this section for purposes of early identification, support, 6 intervention and accommodation of children with dyslexia and other 7 learning disabilities. For purposes of this section, the term "dyslexia" 8 means a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin 9 and that is characterized by unexpected difficulties with accurate or 10 fluent word recognition and poor spelling and decoding abilities, which 11 difficulty typically results from a deficit in the phonological compo- 12 nent of language and that is inconsistent with the person's intelli- 13 gence, motivation, and sensory capabilities and the provision of effec- 14 tive instruction. 15 2. Mandatory early screening for dyslexia shall be conducted by each 16 school district using an assessment tool that includes targeted ques- 17 tions and student tasks designed to quickly and reliably gather certain 18 relevant functional and developmental information consistent with the 19 research findings in this area and supported by the findings in the 20 Report of the National Reading Panel from 2000, from all children 21 screened pursuant to this section. Such questions and tasks shall be 22 aligned with developmental benchmarks in specific precursors correlated 23 with reading acquisition based on the recognized reading science. EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD02870-01-5 
 A. 1186 2 1 Mandatory early screening shall commence during pre-kindergarten or 2 kindergarten, whichever is earlier, and shall continue thereafter on an 3 annual basis until such child has successfully completed the second 4 grade. The assessment tools used shall be selected from an approved 5 list of tools deemed to be valid and reliable, with training and subse- 6 quent coaching provided to teachers to ensure fidelity to the assessment 7 model as per the research methodology provided in the development of 8 such tools. 9 3. Upon completion of the administration of each mandatory early 10 screening, a copy of each early screening report and any other findings 11 shall be given to the parent and/or guardian and teachers and teaching 12 assistants of each child identified as at risk for reading failure, and 13 the individual designated in subdivision four of this section. 14 4. Each school district shall designate an individual to maintain 15 complete and accurate records, including copies of each early screening 16 report, for all children for the duration of each child's educational 17 pursuit or until such child reaches the age of sixteen, whichever is 18 later. The designated individual shall provide resources and materials 19 to the parent and/or guardian of any child who displays low phonemic 20 awareness and other indications of dyslexia. 21 5. School districts shall ensure that the assessment results are used 22 in a proactive manner, ensuring that findings of risk for reading fail- 23 ure are followed up immediately by the provision of research-based meth- 24 ods of instruction and intervention in the identified areas of need to 25 ensure that risk does not turn into failure. 26 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.