(a) “Board” means the State Board of Education.

(b) “Department” means the State Department of Education.

(c) “Dyslexia” means a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin, characterized by difficulties with accurate and fluent word recognition and poor spelling and decoding abilities, which typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction, and secondary consequences which may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.

(d) “Dyslexia therapy” means an appropriate specialized dyslexia instructional program that is delivered by a Mississippi Department of Education licensed dyslexia therapist which is scientific, research-based, Orton-Gillingham based, and is offered in a small group setting to teach students the components of reading instruction which include:

(i) Phonemic awareness to enable students to detect, segment, blend and manipulate sounds in spoken language;

(ii) Graphophonemic knowledge (phonics) for teaching the letter-sound plan of English;

(iii) The entire structure of the English language that encompasses morphology, semantics, syntax and pragmatics;

(iv) Linguistic instruction directed toward proficiency and fluency with the patterns of language so that words and sentences are carriers of meaning; and

(v) Strategies that students use for decoding, encoding, word recognition, fluency and comprehension.

These components shall be taught using instructional approaches that include explicit, direct instruction which is systematic, sequential and cumulative, following a logical plan of presenting the alphabetic principle commensurate with the students’ needs, with no assumption of prior skills or language knowledge; individualized to meet the specific learning needs of each individual student in a small group setting; intensive, highly concentrated instruction that maximizes student engagement and uses specialized methods and materials; meaning-based instruction directed toward purposeful reading and writing, with an emphasis on comprehension and composition; and multisensory instruction that incorporates the simultaneous use of two (2) or more sensory pathways during teacher presentations and student practice.

(e) “Dyslexia therapist” means a professional who has completed training in a department approved Orton-Gillingham based dyslexia therapy training program attaining a AA license in dyslexia therapy or a professional participating in a state approved dyslexia therapy training program to attain a AA license in dyslexia therapy.

(f) “Mississippi Dyslexia Therapy Scholarship for Students with Dyslexia Program” means a scholarship to provide the option to attend a public school other than the one to which assigned, or to provide a scholarship to a nonpublic school of choice, for students in Grade 1 through Grade 12 diagnosed with dyslexia in order to receive comprehensive multisensory dyslexia therapy delivered by holders of an appropriate license in dyslexia therapy issued by the department.

(g) “School” means any public or state accredited nonpublic special purpose school that provides a specific learning environment that provides comprehensive dyslexia therapy instruction delivered by dyslexia therapists licensed by the department providing highly qualified education and intervention services to children diagnosed with the primary learning disability of dyslexia.