The opportunity to bring Orton-Gillingham training to Chambersburg teachers is very dear to our hearts. I understand what it’s like to be the slowest reader in the room, the one that stumbles to sound out the simplest of words, the one that made the whole class groan when called on to read out loud, to look at a page of text and see a bunch of jumbled letters. No matter how hard I tried to understand and learn in school, the information would get all mixed up in my head. All of my classes at every level of school were extremely challenging for me. If it wasn’t for the support of my parents, sports, and my stubbornness, I probably wouldn’t have graduated high school, let alone been the first in my family to graduate college. I was eventually tested and diagnosed with dyslexia, as an adult. I learned that the way the information was presented in school was not suitable to my particular learning style because I was dyslexic. 

As a mother, it was heartbreaking to see our daughter struggle in elementary school, just like I had. Abby had difficulty with reading, word decoding, word recognition, reading comprehension and reading fluency. We spent many evenings soothing her tears and encouraging her to keep trying. Since we saw the signs of dyslexia and knew that it is genetic, we knew that Abby needed to be tested for a learning disability. We had her tested and she was diagnosed with dyslexia. Once Abby was diagnosed, it helped us and her to better understand her learning challenges. It also opened doors to additional services in school. Abby's teachers recognized how hard she was working to learn and saw her frustration in trying to keep up with her peers. Her teachers tried many different methods and techniques to assist her, but nothing seemed to be the right solution. As Abby progressed in school, she continued to read below grade level, which negatively affected all of her subjects. It's hard to explain how extremely difficult and frustrating school was for Abby. She wanted to learn and be as "smart" as the other kids in her classes so desperately. If you were blessed to have known Abby back then, you would have quickly recognized how intelligent and driven to learn she was and still is. The problem was, she was unable to process and comprehend the information in the same way as her classmates, due to her dyslexia.

After several years of seeing our daughter continue to struggle with all aspects of reading, knowing that her reading difficulties would follow her all the way though school and into adulthood, we wanted to do everything that we could to help her succeed in school. We tried numerous intervention methods, both in and outside of school. Then a family friend connected us with the Children's Dyslexia Center of Central Pennsylvania, which is a charity of the Scottish Rite Freemasonry. The Center utilizes an Orton-Gillingham based, multisensory structured language education approach for tutoring dyslexic students. Instruction is direct, systematic, cumulative, diagnostic, and prescriptive. Beginning when Abby was in fifth grade, we drove her to The Childrens Dyslexia Center in Harrisburg twice a week, after school for Orton-Gillingham tutoring.

Many times, she would eat her dinner and work on her homework in the car. Our family made the hour-long trip to Harrisburg, waited while Abby worked with an Orton-Gillingham certified tutor for an hour, then drove another hour home. We made this trip twice a week for two years until she completed their tutoring program. We often enlisted the help of her grandparents to drive her to Harrisburg for tutoring. This was a huge commitment of our time and resources that we decided to make as a family to help Abby be a successful learner. The Children's Dyslexia Center and the Orton-Gillingham tutoring program was a Godsend for us and Abby. The Orton-Gillingham approach helped to improve Abby's reading levels by providing her with reading strategies that she continues to use today. It also helped to improve her self-confidence in her own abilities. Abby is now excelling as a straight A Honors student at CASHS and is enrolled in classes at Shippensburg University. Following graduation from CASHS, Abby plans to go onto college to get a degree in elementary education, so she can help kids that struggle with learning, just like her.

We acknowledge that all of Abby's success in school cannot only be attributed to the Orton-Gillingham tutoring she received. She has had many wonderful teachers and she works VERY hard at her schoolwork to maintain her good grades. Abby still has her struggles with reading but now she has the confidence and extra skills to help her work through those challenges. Throughout our research on dyslexia, we were surprised to learn that studies show that 1 in 5 people are ​dyslexic. Remarkably, this means of the 9,102 students in the Chambersburg Area School District, there are approximately 1,800 students that have dyslexia! And in a classroom of 25 students, 5 are dyslexic. Many of these students have learning challenges and go undiagnosed, so they do not receive support services in school. The strategies that teachers learn through the Orton-Gillingham Training Educator Empowerment Fund will help these students along with countless others that struggle with learning using traditional teaching methods.  

The Children's Dyslexia Center of Central Pennsylvania had such a positive impact on our journey that we wanted to find a way to help other struggling students and teachers get access to and be trained in Orton-Gillingham. Therefore, we partnered with The Children's Dyslexia Center and the Chambersburg Area Education Foundation to provide CASD educators with the opportunity to get valuable Orton-Gillingham training, so they can use it in their classrooms and help ALL students who struggle with reading, word recognition, reading comprehension, and decoding. The Orton-Gillingham techniques that teachers will learn can be used with any curriculum that the school district utilizes. Since 1994, the Scottish Rite Masons have been national leaders in the effort to help children and their families overcome the obstacles of dyslexia. With over 40 active Children's Dyslexia Centers in 13 states, the Centers have helped more than 16,000 children and certified 4,200 educators in their training courses. They tackle the challenge of dyslexia head-on, both by providing free one-on-one tutoring for children and by training a growing body of highly skilled and dedicated tutors.

Over the years we have spoken with many educators about the help that Abby received at The Children's Dyslexia Center, and many have heard of Orton-Gillingham and expressed interest in wanting to be trained so they can help the struggling students in their classrooms. We are also aware of many parents in our area whose children struggle to read and learn much like our Abby. Knowing firsthand the commitment required and the strain that taking a child to Harrisburg twice a week for tutoring puts on a family, we wanted to find a way to bring The Children's Dyslexia Center’s resources to our community, to help these children and families. So, we set out to find a way to help the educators in the Chambersburg Area School District to receive this training.

We are asking for your financial support for the Orton-Gillingham Training Educator Empowerment Fund. Our goal is to establish an endowed fund that will provide funding to CASD educators, with the resources to help them receive high impact training and skills to help them to be more successful and help them to reach more students within their classrooms learn to read and discover their full potential. Ultimately, we desire to help as many students as possible by helping educators in the Chambersburg Area School District receive valuable training. You will also be supporting our teachers by providing them with the opportunity to receive cutting-edge Orton-Gillingham training that they can use in their classrooms. Please consider helping us give back to our teachers and help them help our children succeed in school by making a tax-deductible, charitable donation through the Chambersburg Area Education Foundation to the Orton-Gillingham Training Educator Empowerment Fund.

Sincerely,