The Alabama Literacy Act (ALA) established a Literacy Task Force (LTF). The IDA-AL Branch was asked to appoint three Certified Academic Language Therapists to the LTF. Early identification and intervention for K-3 students who have literacy challenges including dyslexia is a primary purpose of the ALA. The LTF has been completing some very heavy lifting helping to ensure that we have high quality core instruction, assessment systems, and intervention tools in place in Alabama schools.
On January 5, 2023 Dr. Eric Mackey, AL Education Superintendent issued a memorandum to all schools that includes the newly completed list of reading interventions, reading assessment systems, and comprehensive core reading programs that are recommended for use with struggling K-3 students in Alabama schools.
The approved interventions include: Take Flight (Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children), SPIRE (School Specialty), Project Read (Language Circle Enterprises), Basic Language Skills (Neuhaus), and Phonics First (Brainspring).
The recommended assessment systems include Aimsweb+ (Pearson) and mCLASS (Amplify).
The recommended Comprehensive Core Reading Programs include Core Knowledge Language Arts (Amplify) and Open Court (McGraw-Hill) with additional programs currently being reviewed.