Schools specialize in teaching dyslexic children to learn

October is National Dyslexia Awareness Month. Photo: Highlands School

By the time he was eight, Dan had already attended three schools. Stomachaches in the mornings and headaches at the end of the day were the norm.

Frustrated and disappointed, Dan was tested and diagnosed with dyslexia—a language-based learning disability that makes reading, writing and learning a challenge. With concern for his future, Dan was enrolled in The Odyssey School, one of several private schools in the Baltimore metropolitan area that work specifically with children who have the intellectual ability to succeed, but require a non-traditional learning environment. Five years later, a confident young man, Dan started his freshman year at Calvert Hall College High School.

Baltimore County's Odyssey and Jemicy Schools
Odyssey, and its northern Baltimore County neighbor The Jemicy School, teach children using a multisensory approach specifically tailored to each student’s individual learning needs. Both Odyssey and Jemicy were founded by concerned parents who watched their own dyslexic children struggle in "regular" schools. The schools, small by design, have highly skilled faculty who must constantly adjust and adapt lessons to meet their students’ needs.

A multisensory approach helps children with dyslexia learn. Photo: Jemicy

Teaching techniques
From high-tech SMART boards to basic one-on-one tutoring, teachers at both Odyssey and Jemicy employ a variety of techniques and strategies to teach the bright children. Additionally, drawing on the research that demonstrates a correlation between physical activity and brain function, the two schools use activity to teach life lessons.

At Odyssey, where student engage in physical activity several times a day, students focus on skill development in the context of non-competitive games, thus staying true to the school's guiding principles of kindness, honesty, respect and hard work.

Meanwhile, Jemicy has established unique and deeply rooted traditions that define its culture and sense of community through an activity they call “fort play.”  For more than 30 years, during recess and under staff supervision, students construct forts in the wooded area behind the school, explore the stream, and engage in a full-fledged economic enterprise of their own making. They use natural resources (rocks, sticks, nuts, and other goods) gathered and collected from the woods as their monetary system; build dams, create woodland gardens, and observe the Maryland wildlife. A set of guidelines, called “the Fort Treaty,” have been developed by the students to encourage respect for all living things, friendly interaction with one another, and use of systematic procedures when claiming fort territory. 

Hands-on activities are part of learning. Photo Odyssey School

Norbel and Highlands schools
Working with, but not limited to children with dyslexia are the Norbel School in Howard County and The Highlands School in Harford County. Like the other schools, Norbel's educational and social framework is continuously adapted to meet the students' individual needs. Students come to understand their own learning style, how to take advantage of their strengths and how to self-advocate. Students with learning differences quickly learn that these differences are not barriers to success, but rather traits that they must embrace in order to succeed in school and life.

In other words, as stated by The Highlands School, "Students learn how they learn best." They are taught the skills and strategies needed to become successful, independent learners who are well-equipped to return to a traditional school setting.

Student success
The four schools mentioned in this article share similar strategies for teaching children with dyslexia and they each have countless success stories thanks to patient, passionate teachers who view "stumbling blocks as opportunities." 

From the Highlands student whose reading level went from pre-primary to the 6th grade level in a year, to the Jemicy graduate who recently began his residency in vascular surgery at the University of North Carolina, the students of Odyssey, Jemicy, Highlands and Norbel have learned to use their strengths to compensate for their weaknesses – a true life-lesson.