Pursuant to authority granted under W.S. 21-3-401, Reading Assessment and Intervention, the Wyoming Department of Education has drafted rules as directed by this statute. The statute directed the state superintendent, in consultation with Wyoming school districts, professionals in the area of reading difficulties, including but not limited to dyslexia, and other appropriate stakeholders, to promulgate rules in order to assist each school district to administer a reading assessment and intervention program and to address skills in the areas of phonological awareness, decoding and phonics, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension / vocabulary.
Chapter 56 Rules are finalized and available here under the Education Section. These rules include the following:
- Develop criteria for instruments which screen for signs of reading difficulties.
- Approve screening instruments district use for the screening process.
- Support districts in providing evidence based intervention and curriculum in the teaching of early reading foundational skills.
- Ensure guardians are notified of screening results and if appropriate individual reading plans are established.
- Establish minimum reading assessment and intervention professional development requirements and collect district professional development plans.
- Collect data from the approved screening process as required to be reported to the Wyoming Department of Education in the predictive areas of phonological awareness, phonics, decoding words and nonwords, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension.
- Directly support school and school districts in meeting the goals of improvement plans as required by statute in the area of professional development in evidence based literacy instruction and intervention and in identifying the signs of reading difficulties.
To assist with the implementation of the K-3 Reading Professional Learning requirements, the WDE has created a series of ten training modules. This series of courses provides an overview of the knowledge and skills required of early reading teachers and all early education professionals, and can be used to partially meet the K-3 Reading Assessment and Intervention professional learning competencies. The module sequence and content aligns with Wyoming’s key defined competency skills for early literacy. Module content will include essential topics based on the science of reading and will integrate essential content and pedagogical knowledge into information on assessment, instruction, differentiation, and intervention.
Screening Tools Assessing the Defined Criteria must be approved by the WDE.
