Hope Haley’s

Finding Hope and Help When Learning Doesn’t Come Easily

the Bucholz family, like many families today, leads a busy life. Kari owns By Design, a successful interior design business headquartered in West Fargo, and Kevin is a civil engineer with Moore Engineering in West Fargo. Combine their careers with school and sports activities for children Somer and Haley, as well as volunteer work and time spent with extended family and you have the recipe for a full and busy life. How do you add more? Sometimes life doesn’t give you a choice….

In the fall of 2005 Haley’s preschool teacher raised some concern that Haley didn’t know numbers or letters and didn’t enjoy reading time. Although a little alarmed, because learning had come so easy for older sister Somer, Kari thought he was simply a “busy little boy who would grow out of it as he matured.” Haley’s kindergarten teacher expressed the same concerns and put him into special education services. In first grade the issues continued with inattentiveness in class and avoiding answering questions. According to Kari, sometime during the early months of first grade, “Haley began shutting down.” He was sad morning and night, complained of stomach aches and was emotionally and socially isolated. The source of his distress was his sense of failure at school.

As it became clear that Haley wasn’t progressing at the normal pace in reading and spelling development, Kari and Kevin provided more help. When other families might practice their spelling words for 10 minutes once a week, they did 10 or 20 minutes every night. They read with him more and used lots of repetition, but Haley didn’t progress. Finally, seeking outside help, they consulted their physician, had a neuropsychiatric evaluation and hired a private tutor, but after months of intensive work, even the veteran teacher/tutor had to admit “I don’t know how to teach your child.” Nothing they were trying seemed to help or provide answers.

Haley himself remembers the feelings of “being different and knowing it was taking me longer to do stuff in school.” He was frustrated having to ask buddies for help with school work and hated the focus on him if he didn’t know how to do something simple in class.

With tenacity, Kari began to look for answers and help beyond the schools and medical community. The possibility of dyslexia was “hesitantly” mentioned by a teacher and more definitively by another visit to a pediatrician knowledgeable in dyslexia. Through research, Kari finally found Learn to Learn, a St. Paul, Minnesota center specializing in diagnosis and tutoring for dyslexia.

What is dyslexia?

Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability that to some degree affects nearly 20% of the population. It is the most common reason children struggle with spelling, writing and reading development. Dyslexia is not just mixing up letters and it is not due to lack of intelligence or desire to learn. In fact it occurs in people of all backgrounds and intellectual levels. Sometimes people who are very bright can be dyslexic and may even be exceptionally gifted in other areas such as art, computer science, music, math, science, drama, sports or emotional intuition. Brain research has shown that people with dyslexia have a unique “wiring” system in their brain and although it can’t be changed, effective intervention can help people with dyslexia cope successfully and even flourish. From Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Henry Ford, to Daniel Radcliff (Harry Potter), Tim Tebow, and Henry Winkler (the Fonz), many famous people have lived with dyslexia and excelled in various pursuits.

According to Susan Barton, an internationally recognized authority in the field of dyslexia and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), there are many warning signs associated with dyslexia. During the preschool years, delayed speech, chronic ear infections, stuttering, inability to create rhyming words, late establishing of a dominant hand, difficulty learning to tie shoes, and trouble memorizing their address, phone number and alphabet may be indicators of dyslexia. As a child moves into the elementary school years, slow, choppy, inaccurate reading, labored and difficult-to-read handwriting, terrible spelling, trouble with memorizing math facts, difficulty with telling time on an analog clock, inability to find the correct word when speaking, and extreme messiness can all be warning signs.

The long road of advocacy

As they began to understand dyslexia, the Bucholz family realized that those standard responses of repetition and trying harder weren’t going to work; rather it was going to take markedly different strategies to help Haley process information and gain success in school. According to Kari, “Dyslexic children initially see and hear things differently and we need to help them learn skills for decoding information.”

From January through June of 2007, Haley, Kari, Kevin, and Somer made a weekly trek to St. Paul, leaving on Thursday to attend tutoring sessions on Friday and Saturday and then returning home at the end of the weekend. The sessions with Learn to Learn director Jane Conlin, who is also the mother of a dyslexic child, were productive and the academic progress was clearly noticeable and measurable. The little boy who had been caught in a cycle of inferiority and sadness began to gain confidence and return to the happy child he had been. By April they were able to see incredible growth in Haley and realized that they had made the right choice in seeking help through Learn to Learn. Since there were no specialized intervention resources for dyslexics closer to the Fargo area, in June of 2007, Kari went to California to receive training in the Orton-Gillingham-based Barton Reading and Spelling Program, so she could continue the tutoring at home.

As the saying goes, “one thing led to another.” Over the course of the next few years, Kari frequently encountered other parents of children with reading and spelling issues. She eventually found that “the knowledge I had attained for personal reasons was being tapped by others around me.” It was clear there were many families suffering and searching for ways to cope with this little understood learning difficulty. Because of her caring nature, Kari naturally wanted to help others and share all that she had been learning. Kari began considering the idea of opening a center specializing in proactive help for dyslexia, but she already had a full-time job and many other commitments. How could they possibly fit it in? During this time of pondering, the office space across the hall from Kari’s interior design business conveniently became available. That factor helped provide a solution to the obstacle of how to make a second business work.

Haley’s Hope

In January of 2011 Kari opened the doors to Haley’s Hope, a center dedicated to consulting, screening, diagnosing and tutoring for children and adults with dyslexia. During the screening process, it may take several tests to determine if an individual has dyslexia and could benefit from the specialized program Haley’s Hope and other dyslexia specialists offer. If dyslexia is identified, Haley’s Hope offers one-on-one tutoring dedicated to helping those who struggle with the reading and writing process. Each tutor is specifically trained in the research-based Orton-Gillingham methods of the multisensory approach (visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic) to help students better store and retrieve information. The strategies are very systematic and cumulative so they build upon each other as the learner gains mastery. Some of the techniques used include dissecting words into parts and learning to “hear” as well as “see” those parts with explicit instruction in awareness of how words sound. Since dyslexia encompasses a wide range of degrees and variations, each case is unique.

In addition to practicing effective reading and writing strategies, people with dyslexia may also benefit from the use of technology to aid them in learning, understanding, and completing assigned tasks. For instance, Haley uses audio programs on a laptop to listen to his textbooks at the same time he reads them. He can also dictate his thoughts and ideas for writing assignments into a computer so that the difficulty he has with the mechanics of writing do not hinder his ability to transfer his thoughts to paper. On other writing assignments when he is doing his own typing, he uses a word prediction program that gives him words from which to choose when his spelling is incorrect. Sometimes a student with dyslexia may need to have special accommodations at school during testing or even with the task of taking notes or doing homework. When teachers, students and parents work together they can often find solutions to obstacles. As Kari explained, “we now have a handle on how Haley learns, and we try to share that information as he transitions to new teachers each year.” This proactive approach to his dyslexia is exactly what Kari and Kevin hope to teach Haley. As he matures and gains independence, he will need to advocate for himself. This sense of independence and self-advocacy is a skill taught to all clients at Haley’s Hope.

A situation like dyslexia is not an isolated incident that affects only one person. It usually impacts the whole family and beyond. In the Bucholz family’s case, Kari took on the bulk of the learning, teaching and advocating related to Haley’s dyslexia, but with the time and energy that required, extra household chores were delegated to Kevin and Somer. The whole family needed to adjust and work together and make changes in choices and priorities. Somer, who at the time of Haley’s diagnosis was 10 years old, was a very disciplined, self-motivated, A-student. She admits that sometimes she felt jealous and disliked seeing Haley “get away with things” when he quit his homework just because he didn’t get it, or got extra praise for completing something what would just have been expected of her. But as the whole family learned more about dyslexia, Somer understood and grew in her role as a supportive big sister. She even describes life with Haley as a big adventure and appreciates the hard work he has done to become successful. In a special note written about her reaction to Haley’s dyslexia diagnosis, Somer describes how proud she is of her parents and the support they have given. Somer said, “Mom basically trained for a whole other job in order to help Haley and others like him succeed.”

Since Haley’s Hope opened, many area families have found help and success. Joel and Sher Thomsen were introduced to Haley’s Hope when their son Heath’s first-grade teacher mentioned recognizing some of the warning signs for dyslexia. Because they have family members with dyslexia, Joel and Sher were aware of the condition. They believe that Heath had masked some of his symptoms of dyslexia by self-selecting work at which he could excel during his years at a Montessori preschool. As Sher explained, “it was very painful as a parent to watch our son struggle with many basic reading concepts when we knew that his retention and problem solving skills were very high.” Thankfully, the early diagnosis for Heath set the foundation for effective intervention and learning of strategies that lead to success. Throughout the process, the Thomsens encouraged Heath to understand and accept his diagnosis. While Heath’s dyslexia means that he learns things differently, it is not necessarily all negative. Heath is a very empathetic child and the Thomsens recognize that “Heath has been blessed with visual way of learning that tends to produce creative, intuitive and compassionate kids that have potential to go beyond the ordinary.” That is not a bad skill set to possess.

Early diagnosis and intervention is most effective

With effective intervention, the prognosis for people with dyslexia is very positive. Research and experience have shown that it is helpful to intervene early rather than waiting to see if a child will outgrow the problem. MRI scans show that the human brain can actually develop helpful “rewiring” to accommodate for the differences in perception, and it appears this occurs more easily during early childhood. Consequently, the National Institute of Health recommends screening for children as young as age 5 who have a family history and exhibit several of the warning signs. Another advantage of early intervention is avoidance of the negative feelings and emotional rollercoaster of being “different” or perceived as “dumber” than everyone else. However, even if a child is older or an adult when dyslexia is identified there is still a great deal of help available that can literally “change a life.”

In both her personal life and her professional life, Kari truly tries to change lives in positive ways. The diagnosis of Haley’s dyslexia created a temporary roadblock for the Bucholz family, but they used that challenge to learn and grow and not only help themselves, but also through Haley’s Hope, to provide effective support and encouragement to others going through similar challenges. Clients who have used Haley’s Hope consider them to be a tremendous resource. As Joel and Sher Thomsen said, “We are profoundly grateful for all Kari and Kevin have done to lead the way for those of us with dyslexic children.”

To learn more about dyslexia and Haley’s Hope, contact Kari Bucholz at 701-373-0397 or go to haleyshope.org and follow the link provided. {AWM}