21 Jan 2013 'Gentle spirit' leads to creation of The Dyslexia Project
by Lee Hogan
Kim Head knew her son was struggling.
She had noticed it since he was 2, but even through trips to testing facilities, no answer could be found.
Kim, a physical therapist at Pediatrics Plus, asked her colleagues, knowledgeable people in the field, but they, too, were unable to supply an answer for Kim. It seemed to elude her.
That all changed the night Noah, Kim’s son, a kindergartener at the time, came into the room crying about his struggles at school.
“I thought, you know, we’re in kindergarten, we’re finger painting, we’re playing on the playground,” she said. “Just beginning school should be this happy, fun, interactive experience.”
But Noah wasn’t enjoying his first year in school. He could tell that he wasn’t up to speed with the other kids. Kim said he entered the room crying and shaking. He was having trouble expressing himself verbally, which was one of the recurring things Kim had seen in Noah.
Kim reassured him that he had to let her know what was going on. What was the problem?
“I’m dumb,” he said. “I can’t do what the other kids do.”
“I knew from that moment that this was a big problem,” she said. “Because I knew that he wasn’t dumb, but I knew that he was struggling with all these things.”
Kim said her son was struggling with the alphabet, couldn’t write letters and also had trouble reading.
When other kids began writing short sentences, Noah was making scratch marks. It was frustrating for Kim to see him struggle in the classroom when he was so gifted in other areas. Kim said Noah is good at building things with his hands and in sports.
“How is he so brilliant, so athletically inclined, creative and have a great personality, but hit a brick wall academically?” Kim recalled. “That was the thing that pushed me to this.”
Kim began researching for herself and was astonished by the answer she found. Her son was suffering from dyslexia.
Kim discovered that kids suffering from dyslexia didn’t just suffer from seeing letters and numbers backward. There were many other, more serious symptoms.
Kim also found through her research that you do not have to wait until a certain age to be tested for dyslexia. Signs for dyslexia can be seen as earlier as 2, which is when she began noticing problems in Noah.
Her first reaction was one of shock and surprise.
“I was like, ‘How has this stuff not hit the public yet? How do we not know about this? Why are teachers not trained in school to be able to recognize this?’” Kim said. “Then my next question was of course, ‘What do we do about it?’”
Since finding the answer, Kim has worked non-stop in providing help for Noah. Through speech therapy, occupational therapy and the Barton Reading and Spelling System, Noah, who is now 7, is reading at his grade level.
In June, Kim began to look past her son and to others struggling with dyslexia. The non-profit organization, “The Dyslexia Project,” held its first training for the Barton system over the summer and around 50 people attended.
“You come into this room with all these parents that you don’t know anything about, and then they start telling their stories and it’s an exact replica of yours except in a different child,” Kim said. “It’s just empowering because you don’t feel alone anymore, and you feel like you’re in this together with someone.”
The Barton system is what worked wonders for Kim, and now she wants to help others with the same system. It goes at the problem in steps and allows parents to help their children, instead of sending them to a specialist. The attendees of the first session were taught level one of the system. The parents then used what they learned at home with their children.
Level two of the system was taught Oct. 13 at Conway Christian School. Kim said the organization has a site license through level four, which she says should get the organization through the first year.
No date has been set yet for a level three session, but will be decided as parents finish level two with their children.
The organization, 150 members strong, had important days in October. Parents presented information on dyslexia to the Arkansas Senate on Oct. 29 in hopes of getting legislation passed for schools in Arkansas concerning dyslexia testing.
“It would make it mandatory for children, kindergarten through second grade, to be screened in schools,” Kim said.
The organization also had a “Dyslexia Awareness Day” on Oct. 27 at Simon Park. The event had information and performances centered around dyslexia.
Things are just getting under way for Kim and the organization, but she has lofty goals for the future, which include a school for kids with dyslexia. While that would be something for the distant future, Kim is more focused on growing the organization and the help for children in the area suffering from dyslexia.
Donations, which are tax-deductible, can be made to the organization (payable to “Community Connections” and designated toward “The Dyslexia Project”).
Kim will continue to find any way possible to help children with dyslexia, and her son, Noah, whose name means “gentle spirit,” is the person that is pushing those efforts.
“That’s what he is,” Kim said. “He is my gentle spirit.”
Dyslexia is a language processing disorder that also impacts directionality and the ability to memorize random facts.
Warning signs of dyslexia start to appear as early as age 1. A child can be accurately tested for dyslexia as early as age 5.
The Dyslexia Project’s mission is to empower children to become all they are capable of being, by helping them to learn to read, using methods based on research by the National Institute of Health.
For more information, visit communityconnectionsar.org/the-dyslexia-project.
