Designing for Equity: Prototyping a Course to Close the Literacy Gap
February 01, 2026
This week I began working on my artifact project thinking about a problem I see every day in my role as an instructional coach. Despite efforts from teachers and interventionists, students with dyslexia on my elementary campus continue to show significantly lower reading performance and slower literacy growth than their peers. Research indicates that differences in reading achievement between students with dyslexia and their typically developing peers can be identified as early as first grade and often persist into adolescence (Wagner et al., 2020). The data makes the inequity impossible to ignore. District reports show that only 27% of students with dyslexia meet grade-level reading benchmarks, compared with 62% of the general student population. On one particular campus, the gap is just as predominant as district data with 36.5% of dyslexic students reaching the Meets or Masters level on state assessments, compared to 60.1% of non-dyslexic students, a 23.6 percentage point difference (District Assessment Data, 2025).
Behind these numbers are real students struggling to access grade-level content, real teachers feeling the pressure to close gaps, and real families hoping for better outcomes. This problem of practice is deeply connected to my daily work analyzing assessment data with teachers and identifying ways to adjust instruction. I realized that if we want different outcomes, we need to strengthen teacher capacity through intentional, data-informed professional learning.
That realization led to the design of my course prototype, I am going to title “Closing the Literacy Gap for Students with Dyslexia: A Data-Informed Professional Learning Course for Educators.” The mission is to equip teachers with the knowledge, tools, and confidence to deliver dyslexia-responsive instruction grounded in assessment data and evidence-based literacy practices. The course prototype is designed not just to give strategies, but to build teachers’ ability to analyze student data, align instruction to specific needs, and monitor progress over time. Ultimately, the goal is equity, ensuring students with dyslexia have meaningful access to grade-level literacy learning.
As I brainstormed and built the ideas for this prototype, principles of creative confidence and innovation shaped my approach. Kelley and Kelley (2013) explain that “early failure can be crucial to success in innovation” and emphasize the “inescapable link between failure and innovation.” This perspective helped me release the pressure to design a perfect course on the first attempt. Instead, I focused on aiming to build something usable and revisable, knowing that iteration would lead to improvement. Their emphasis on “persistence and gradual mastery of skills” also resonated with me as I stretched beyond my comfort zone in course prototyping (Kelley & Kelley, 2013).
Moggridge’s (2007) work on interaction design further influenced my process. He stresses that strong design begins with understanding people, “what they need, want and enjoy, as well as how they think and behave” and that designers arrive at effective solutions by “prototyping early and often.” This pushed me to think about the lived experience of classroom teachers on my campus. Rather than designing in isolation, I imagined how teachers would move through the course, where they might feel overwhelmed, and where they would need concrete classroom connections. I began with rough structure ideas that I put into a concept brainstorm map using Mindomo. I plan to gradually refine them, aligning with Moggridge’s (2007) idea that early prototypes should be “just enough to communicate each concept” before being improved through evaluation and revision.
Parrish’s (2006) concept of design as storytelling also shaped my thinking. He encourages designers to consider the “holistic experience of learning, not just achievement of objectives” and to use “empathetic imagination” when creating learning environments. This reminded me that teachers are not just recipients of professional development, but they are learners with emotions, pressures, and aspirations. As a result, I worked this week to design a course experience that feels supportive and affirming, not just instructional. I began thinking about reflection prompts, classroom scenarios, and opportunities for application that could be included to make the learning feel relevant and human-centered. I began this prototype on Google Sites. I even wrote out a rough draft of a design story that I created using Canva to help me better determine some early ideas.
This prototype is not going to be a finished solution, and that’s the point. Strong design grows through iteration, reflection, and responsiveness to user needs. As Kelley and Kelley (2013) note, learning from failure requires that we “own” what does not work and use it to improve future efforts. My next steps will involve gathering teacher feedback, creating and refining modules, and strengthening the connection between data analysis and daily instructional practice.
Designing this course has reminded me that closing literacy gaps is not only about student interventions, but it is also about designing better learning systems for teachers. When we build educator capacity with empathy, data, and intentional design, we move closer to a more equitable literacy experience for every student.
References
District Assessment Data. (2025). Campus A: 3-6th grade reading curriculum-
based assessments, fall 2025[Unpublished raw data].
Kelley, T., & Kelley, D. (2013). Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential
Within Us All. New York, NY: Currency.
Moggridge, B. (2007). Designing Interactions (pp. 641–681). Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Parrish, P. (2006). Design as storytelling. TechTrends, 50(4), 72-82.
Wagner, R. K., Zirps, F. A., Edwards, A. A., Wood, S. G., Joyner, R. E., Becker, B. J.,
Liu, G., & Beal, B. (2020). The Prevalence of Dyslexia: A New Approach to Its Estimation. Journal of learning disabilities, 53(5), 354–365. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219420920377
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