In the first two parts of this blog, I outlined compelling evidence about the extensive and probably excessive use of readers for Kentucky’s students with learning disabilities. These kids even get readers on the state’s reading assessments. That prevents education leaders and the public from knowing if any real effort is being expended to teach these special students to read.I also provided evidence that using readers significantly inflates so-called “reading” scores for this student group.The score inflation feature of the reading accommodation in testing certainly could explain why some Kentucky teachers are fighting tooth and nail to preserve this misleading, and very likely damaging, testing practice.Those teachers who want to continue massive use of the reading accommodation on reading tests also complain that not reading the tests to these students would be unfair to those students.Maybe not.In fact, exciting new information from Northern Kentucky makes it seem more likely that allowing schools an easy out from trying to teach many learning disabled kids to read is actually causing far more damage to those children. You see, Northern Kentucky schools are learning that notable numbers of students who have been carried as very weak or totally non-readers for some time can learn to read after all. For sure, the fight to keep on reading the reading tests is brutal.On September 10, 2012 the Kentucky Legislature’s Interim Joint Committee on Education held a hearing on a regulation to tighten up on excessive use of readers for students with learning disabilities for the reading part of Kentucky’s school assessments.To put it mildly, that hearing was contentious, and long.It seems clear that some of the people commenting at the education committee meeting, including teachers and even some committee members, don’t want to change things.Many others are upset about the implementation timing of the regulation, which would start reducing the number of students getting this questionable test accommodation this coming spring. This crowd doesn’t want to rush things.One major arguing point – how can we expect students who have proceeded all the way through their school years – sometimes all the way to high school – using readers on all tests to suddenly start reading the reading tests on their own?The supporters of the reading accommodation sound fairly convincing – BUT –Some amazing answers to the “don’t rush” crowd and other issues raised in the legislative meeting are coming out of some Northern Kentucky school districts. What is happening in Northern Kentucky suggests that a lot of things we’ve been told about reading are wrong and that for our non-readers time is of the essence.On September 8, 2012, nky.com ran an extremely important article titled “Programs help schools increase literacy rates.”This article, from the Kentucky Enquirer’s Bill Croyle, talks about exciting results from relatively new reading programs for students with learning disabilities in three separate Northern Kentucky counties: Boone, Kenton and Campbell.The article headlines a Kenton County student who progressed using test readers all the way to the ninth grade before Kenton County teachers found a program that would work. Now, this student – who was still reading at the first grade level as an entering ninth grader and was still having state assessments read to her – is reading at the seventh grade level after just one year of the program.And, the good news isn’t happening just in Kenton County.Aside from more good news from Campbell County Schools, Croyle’s article says of the most enthusiastic supporters of these new reading initiatives is Karen Cheser, the deputy superintendent from Boone County Schools. She has seen some impressive numbers.nky.com reports of one Boone County school:“At Conner High School, the computer-based Reading Assistant program was used in 2011-12. Of the 70 students who participated, nearly half advanced 3-6 grade levels. Another 15 students advanced two grade levels.”This is amazing. High school students boosting their reading level by three to six grades in just one year goes against a lot of research that claims a window of opportunity to learn to read tends to close after the third grade. The Northern Kentucky experience challenges that long-held belief.For Karen Cheser, it’s even more personal. Reports nky.com, “When her son was in second grade at New Haven Elementary School, she said he was in the eighth percentile in reading. By the end of fourth grade last year, he was in the 70th percentile.”What an improvement! In just two years Cheser’s son soared from having 92 percent of the students reading better than he did to having 70 percent reading with less skill.What might have happened if Cheser’s son had been in another Kentucky school system? Would other Kentucky educators have given up on a kid who was being out-read by 92 percent of his peers? Would they have relegated him to a school career where every test was read to him and where he would emerge from school as a non-reader?The nky.com article says more. It points out that these successful reading programs require the learning disabled students to do a lot of practice. Success requires drill to skill.How very different from the nonsense we heard back in the early days of KERA when teachers confidently told us that they were worried about “drill and kill.” Those misguided educators were confident that practice turned kids off and didn’t work. We now know the “drill and kill” crowd was flat wrong, but true believers in this myth are still out there.To be sure, Cheser’s son and many other students who are having problems learning to read need the right program. It has taken time for such programs to surface and our school systems still may need more help to find truly effective programs. However, the Northern Kentucky experience shows that once these students get that right program, they start to move, often dramatically.Of course, while more of the “right stuff” is available for these kids today, schools have to use it. When schools have a motivation in the testing system to just pass students along using the reading accommodation while generating misleading test scores, I am concerned that in too many cases Kentucky’s schools are not getting the motivation they need to really search for what works with each student.Tune in tomorrow for more on that.