Cerise Moran Hock, founding director of the Dyslexia Foundation of Western Colorado, presents “Inside the Dyslexic Mind: A Simulation Experience with Real-World Strategies” during the 2025 Next Steps Neurodiversity Expo at the Grand Junction Convention Center on Aug. 16, 2025. The presentation included two simulations providing an experiential viewpoint of dyslexia for participants, who had to “decode” a text with rearranged letters and write dictated sentences with their non-dominant hand. After the simulation, parents in attendance were given ideas about accommodations, ways they can help learning at home and ways teachers can provide easy-to-implement classroom accommodations.
More dyslexic kids across Colorado should be diagnosed early on in their childhoods, should two bills passed in the state’s last legislative session have their intended effects.
Senate Bill 200 establishes that school districts must establish a robust dyslexia screening process for students in kindergarten through the third grade by the 2027-2028 school year. Senate Bill 154 allows licensed teachers to perform these screenings without the district having to involve a specialist, simplifying the process.
Both bipartisan bills were sponsored by House District 54 Rep. Matt Soper (R-Delta), who is dyslexic himself. Soper was diagnosed in kindergarten, weaving in and out of special education and after-school classes while learning through books read on tape.
He believes that early diagnosis set him up for success, and he believes Colorado’s kids will benefit in the same way through Senate Bill 200 (“Dyslexia Screening and READ Act Requirements”).
“Having an early diagnosis changed everything for me,” Soper said. “By being diagnosed earlier, it means that the support the individual needs to be on the same playing field as everyone else will be there. If that person continues to struggle at every educational step of their life, they will just fall further behind. If having more time to do something is the secret, then time should be allowed for them.”
DYSLEXIA FOUNDATION
Cerise Moran Hock, the founding director of the Dyslexia Foundation of Western Colorado, spoke to The Daily Sentinel about the “exciting” impact of this legislation.
“Dyslexia is lifelong. This is not something you just grow out of. It’s how the brain processes information. By identifying early, we begin to teach those literacy skills early, which helps with mental health in young children, so you don’t see this great struggle where they internalize that great struggle as their lack of capabilities. They understand this is how their brain works,” Hock said.
“It impacts lifelong literacy. It impacts occupation rates. It impacts the well-being of every Coloradan because we’re then dealing with a population that has impacted literacy, which impacts the rest of their lives and influences others. It’s also hereditary, so that early identification piece is so important so that we are providing the right steps and education early on and not seeing children slip through the cracks or adults who don’t have those literacy skills.”
Hock noted that Colorado was one of few states to not have legislation like this in place, so this is a sign that the state is being more proactive for kids. She shared some concerns about implementation, but those concerns are areas where her foundation can step in and help kids and districts.
“Even though a school’s identifying that a child’s dyslexic, especially here on the Western Slope, there aren’t necessarily the resources in place to then provide the services that they need. That’s something the Dyslexia Foundation has been championing for the last 10 years,” Hock said.
“We’re in a position to be able to offer some of that support, and we love partnering with schools to make that happen. It’ll be interesting to see how it’s implemented, especially because there will be children who were identified and will still need the services.”
She pointed out that school districts don’t offer medical diagnoses but rather identify potential dyslexia, which can only be confirmed by a doctor or a licensed clinical psychologist.
Hock also said that, because dyslexia is a processing order that’s not “black and white”, it can be challenging to identify because it impacts each child differently.
“A child who is only minimally impacted, they need additional time with reading, they may need some additional instruction, but they can certainly be serviced and have resources just through classroom accommodation. Their plan make look significantly different than the child who is directly impacted and significantly impacted. That child requires additional pull-out services, an IEP (Individualized Education Program), in addition to classroom accommodations and more structured literacy intervention,” Hock said.
“All in all, we still have to realize that children need support. That may look a little different, but there are many great resources out there like our foundation and the educators we work with, who are trained in reading curricula and who understand how dyslexia impacts brain processing and brain functioning. They began to realize how each child can be accommodated.”
Hock said that her foundation will be championing various campaigns to raise awareness and scholarships on the Western Slope throughout October, which is Dyslexia Awareness Month.
SOPER’S PERSPECTIVE
Soper kept his dyslexia out of public or political view for most of his career until last year.
That is when he was contacted by Hock and the Dyslexia Foundation urging his support for House Bill 24-1342 (“Test Accommodations for Persons with Disabilities”) and letting him know that the foundation considered him “one of us.”
He ultimately sponsored the legislation, which passed.
With this year’s Senate bills, Soper emphasized his dyslexia to show his colleagues an example of how those diagnosed early can thrive in any role, such as that of an elected official.
When attending Colorado Mesa University, Soper received class-specific support. As a political science major, he had extra credit opportunities through research papers and books on cassette tapes, along with study and learning supports. He maintained high marks because his grades were based on term papers that weren’t exams.
“There was a struggle of not wanting to show I had or needed support and desiring to appear normal. The battle to receive support is half the battle. The other half is mental and emotional in light of peers teasing or mocking you for having a learning disability,” Soper said.
“Not everyone has caring professors like Dr. John Redifer, Dr. Michael Gizzi or Dr. Tim Casey, my core poli sci professors. I had only one of two A+ grades Dr. Gizzi ever awarded in his career. A dyslexic can perform well with time and support on learning how to learn. I was one who was fortunate.”
When Senate Bills 200 and 154 go into widespread effect, he’s hopeful that such fortune will be more commonplace.
“I certainly understand that people who are dyslexic probably go one of two directions. Our prison population has a high percentage of dyslexic individuals because, if you can’t read, you can fully fall through the cracks. Likewise, there are a lot of people in our population who are dyslexic and have been successful in the career they’ve chosen,” Soper said.
Soper compared childhood literacy rates and the percentage of the prison population that is dyslexic. Modern studies nationally conclude that 30-50% of the prison population is dyslexic.
“The cool thing is, if we’re successful as a state and we’re intervening early on — our prison population’s made up of (30-50%) dyslexic individuals, and 60% of our fourth-graders are not reading at grade level — we actually could have fewer people in prison because if you can read and you can function in society, you can get a job and you can get a good-paying job, and it disrupts everything.” Soper said.
Soper said it should also eliminate the blame game.
“It also means other individuals who blame their adult struggles on the fact that they didn’t get support in K-12 will see that excuse go away. We’re creating individuals who are more attune and ready to be part of the workforce…. It sets Colorado up for being a state that recognizes that we won’t leave any student behind just because it’s inconvenient to give them the support they need.”
Soper also spoke about Senate Bill 154 (“Access to Educator Pathways”), saying that it overlaps with Senate Bill 200 in “removing red tape” to allow the maximum number of teachers to perform screenings instead of a teacher needing a special education license in order to do so.
He leaned on his own experience as a kid in Delta schools when he was helped by his own teachers, who had manageable enough class sizes to focus on his needs and intervene.
“The cool thing about this is what we were doing in the past is that the school district would have to hear from a teacher, ‘I think this student has a learning disability,’ then they would need that student to go to an educational psychologist, sometimes with an M.D., to evaluate if they really have a disability or if they’re just a poor student who needs some structure and focus and guidance. That’s very expensive,” Soper said.
DISTRICT 51 PROTOCOL
Mesa County Valley School District 51 explained how its current dyslexia screening process might need to adapt or grow under the new guideline.
The district responded that it’s “already ahead”, screening all K-3 students with the eighth edition of DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) and administering the Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) test — which measures how quickly and accurately someone can name aloud a series of familiar stimuli like letters or numbers — when additional insight is needed.
“Early identification is critical to helping students become successful readers,” said D51 Director of Assessment Curry Newton. “By implementing screening now, we are better equipping educators to support students from the very beginning of their literacy journey.”
CMU PROTOCOL
Colorado Mesa University Director of Educational Access Services and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Coordinator April Durham spoke with The Daily Sentinel about how the university supports students who have been diagnosed with dyslexia.
“At CMU, students who are diagnosed with dyslexia can receive various accommodations addressing the barriers they encounter,” Durham said. “We work with them to find the right accommodation to provide access and facilitate independence. For example, a student who struggles to decode words might use assistive technology, such as text-to-speech, to effectively read their textbook for auditory comprehension.”
The university’s office for Educational Access Services works individually with students who face barriers, including those who haven’t been officially diagnosed with dyslexia yet.
Durham was asked why she believes those diagnosed at a younger age have a higher chance at success, including in college.
“Research suggests early detection is strongly related to improved chances for success when effective interventions are implemented,” Durham said. “In my experience, students are most successful when they take advantage of the supports, services, and accommodations available to them.”
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