School dyslexia lab for kindergarten, 1st grade

PETAL, Miss. (AP) - Petal Primary School has a new lab for students who are having trouble learning to read.

The school has 1,000 students. About 185 spend a few hours a week with the lab’s two full-time and six part-time teachers’ assistants, Principal Kim Raulston said.

She said she set aside money from the school’s budget to create a place where students with dyslexia can get intensive tutoring and support.

That’s on top of a $129,000 state grant to train people at the primary school and Petal Elementary and Petal Upper Elementary to teach dyslexic students, she told tells the Hattiesburg American (https://hatne.ws/1bVwy1L ).

The children using the lab all were identified in kindergarten or first grade as dyslexic. “Kindergarten students are screened in the spring and first-graders are screened in the fall,” she said.

The teachers’ assistants get the children to use their eyes, ears and muscles to help them learn letters and words. The children are taught both one- by-one and in small groups, with lots of review.

Cathy South, the district’s dyslexia therapist, said getting the students into the dyslexia lab is crucial to later success.

“If we can catch them (in) K-2, we can give them the help they need, so when they get to third grade, they can take those state tests and read proficiently, so they can move beyond third grade,” she said.

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Information from: The Hattiesburg American, https://www.hattiesburgamerican.com