October 6, 2004
Musique letter-perfect
Grand Traverse Dyslexic Association raises $7,000 for tuition fund
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
From the inability to tie shoes or tell time to mispronouncing words or confusing symbols, dyslexia is a multi-faceted challenge.
For the past 19 years, Pat Dolanski, herself dyslexic, has been helping others reach their academic and personal potential through tutoring at the Grand Traverse Dyslexic Association. She and her staff of 26 tutors work one-on-one with students once or twice a week, using exercises, homework and games to help the student work around their dyslexia.
"I couldn't make it without this," said Jamie Magee, a sophomore at Northwestern Michigan College studying to be a teacher.
Magee's dyslexia prevented simple tasks like telling time or tying her shoes well into elementary school. With tutoring, she mastered them by the third grade and now is succeeding in college.
"I started [being tutored] in third grade and for the first time ever I got an A on a math test," Magee noted. "My tutor, Molly, would help me with anything, reading, math, skills."
Paving the way for future success stories, this Sunday, the association added approximately $7,000 to their tuition assistance fund during the Fourth Annual Musique in the Afternoon event.
Held at the Dennos Museum, the event featured soprano Kimberly Dolanski and mezzo-soprano Milena Grubor singing a range of songs from opera to show tunes. Pianists Patrick Johnson and Adam Aceto accompanied as a duo team.
Jordan Thomas opened the event by playing Amazing Grace on the violin, accompanying Dolanski as she sang the hymn. Thomas, a ninth-grade student from St. Francis High School, participated as part of his school's community service program.
This year's Musique in the Afternoon was dedicated to Molly Reilly, a longtime tutor with the organization who died this year.
Dolanski founded the Grand Traverse Dyslexia Association when she saw her daughter, Kimberly, struggle in the same ways she did as a child. She realized her daughter also had dyslexia and focused on helping her and eventually hundreds of other children.
The family connection with the condition is typical, Dolanski noted. Although as late as the 1970s, dyslexia was thought to be caused by or a form of brain damage.
"It's genetic, it does run in families and researchers have found the gene for dyslexia," Dolanski said. "They have been able to do very expensive MRI tests and demonstrate the area of brain involvement plus autopsies on people with dyslexia show no brain damage."
The association works with approximately 130 students at any one time; 38 of these students received tuition assistance last year. The program runs year round and tutors also help families work with their children.
Dolanski emphasizes the association's partnership with area schools and teachers.
"We work in complement with the schools, the things we teach don't go against what they teach in schools," she noted. "We work hard to be an ally with the teachers and schools."
Working with a dyslexic student is not just a matter of fixing their recognition of the letters b and d, the usual perception of dyslexia.
"Transposing letters is the most common thing people think of, but it is the easiest thing to fix," Dolanski said. "There are tricks to the trade and I could fix a b-d reversal in one day."
Dyslexics are not visual learners, the learning style most common in schools, so they need other paths to learn the same information. For example, a dyslexic student could write a series of spelling words 25 times, turn the page over and not recall one of them. Or another dyslexic student with excellent short-term memory could pass the test but within days have forgotten all the words.
"The biggest problem is that kids cannot remember the look of words, their recollection of symbols," noted Dolanski, who uses the Orton-Gillingham method at the association. "Parents will tell me they can work out a word on one page using phonics, but the young child will not recognize it from page to page."
Building independent and confident learners is the ultimate goal of the Grand Traverse Dyslexia Association.
"We want them to be able to walk out that door when they leave so they can find the answers for themselves," Dolanski said. "So they are not only being taught how to be adequate readers and spellers but also being taught to manage in a world that doesn't understand them."