AIM 2017 Reach for the Stars

An Alumni Parent's Perspective

Myra Petras P'17 share her son's transformational experience at AIM during our New Family Social on September 23.

Dyslexia, neurobiological in origin, refers to a cluster of symptoms that affects specific language skills, particularly reading.
Dyslexia is neither due to a lack of intelligence nor a desire to learn.
15-20% of the population as a whole exhibit some symptoms of dyslexia, including slow or inaccurate reading, poor spelling, poor writing, mixing up similar words, difficulty learning a foreign language, and/or trouble memorizing number facts and performing mathematical operations.
Some dyslexics manage to master early reading and spelling skills, but later experience their most debilitating problems when more complex language skills are required such as grammar, understanding textbook materials and writing essays.
Early at risk signs may include several of the following:
- speaks later than most
- pronunciation problems
- slow vocabulary growth
- word retrieval difficulty
- unable to rhyme words
- trouble learning numbers, alphabet, days of the week, colors and shapes
- poor letter-sound correspondence
- inability to recognize common sight words
After 4th grade, it takes 4 times as long to remediate reading difficulties
70% of 3rd graders who read below grade level never catch up