On Listening to Nonacademic Stakeholders

• In Event: How Reading Researchers Can Collaborate Beyond the Academy to Promote the Common Good: The Case of the Curious Dyslexia Debate

Abstract

Although researchers have studied dyslexia for over a century, there is still much debate about how dyslexia differs from other reading difficulties and how to support students labeled dyslexic. Nevertheless, dyslexia policy and practice are steeped in authoritative discourse that speaks of a definitive definition, unique characteristics, and prescribed intervention programs that are not well supported by research. In Texas, and increasingly in other states, only educators trained in these programs are considered qualified to provide intervention for students identified as dyslexic. In contrast to earlier research, which found that the word dyslexia decreased teachers’ confidence and feelings of self-efficacy, the dyslexia interventionists we interviewed expressed a high degree of confidence and certainty about dyslexia and the interventions they used. Listening for the positioning discourses at work in the privileging of professional knowledge allows a fuller understanding of the discursive tensions between academic and non-academic reading professionals.

In this presentation, I will respond to comments made in the introduction and three previous presentations based on notes made during the symposium, to advocate for a larger conversation—beginning with the scholars present at the

Author

• Jo Worthy, The University of Texas at Austin