6 minute read
Maine CDC Tutors Go to Extraordinary Lengths
by Katie McElwain, Development Associate
Masons have always taken pride in their mission to care for others, espousing Core Values that develop committed, compassionate, and thoughtful men. At the Children’s Dyslexia Centers, one of Scottish Rite’s five charities, these values are put into action every day by the tutors who sacrifice their time to help children struggling with reading and writing.
Every tutor at a Children’s Dyslexia Center is teaching because of a desire to create a better path for the children they serve. Devoting time and energy to helping dyslexic children is a labor of love that doesn’t come with a copious paycheck or public accolades. The reward is seeing the positive and transformative impact on students’ lives.
In Maine, some of those students have two tenacious women to thank for recognizing an underserved need and doing something to fix it by providing valuable educational support to their communities.
Susan Chandler and Lindsay Eysnogle, both tutors who trained at the Children’s Dyslexia Center in Bangor, Maine, show this tenacity, integrity, and compassion through the personal sacrifices they made to complete their certification at the Center.
“I really wanted to continue to teach kids how to read, because I had kind of fallen in love with it.”
For Susan Chandler, a Bangor CDC tutor, her tutor journey began because of her husband’s Masonic connection. A long-time educator, Susan has 39 years of experience teaching in the Jonesport school district, a small town in coastal Maine. Her work had never been dyslexia-focused until her husband, a Mason, shared an article from a Scottish Rite publication about the work of the Children’s Dyslexia Centers. She then became interested in their teaching methods and contacted the Bangor Center to sign up for tutor instruction. She realized local public schools had a great need for an educational service for struggling students that was otherwise missing.
Getting Susan certified was also a joint commitment with her husband, as they both went to enormous lengths to get her to classes for her tutor certification. After Susan worked her regular teaching job during the day, her husband would drive her two hours each way to Bangor twice a week for the training sessions. The four-hour round-trip drive was tiring, but Susan and her husband are completely dedicated to bringing these teaching methods to more children. She helped tutor children at the Center and then began to think about how these methods could serve her community.
After Susan started her training, she thought of her past students, who, in hindsight, might have benefited from the structured literacy methods she was now learning. “It’s extremely important to try to identify dyslexia as soon as possible, as the most progress is accomplished when they are young,” she stressed. She approached the parents of her former students and soon, with their blessing, began one- on-one lessons with some of them.
As her students progressed through the lessons, Susan observed how much each student’s confidence and demeanor were affected by learning to read without a struggle. She loves witnessing a student see clearly for the first time, like a light bulb turning on. Suddenly, all the pieces fit in their minds.
Susan plans to continue her work with dyslexic children and will renew her dyslexia certification next year. She hopes to return to the CDC from time to time to work with children at the Center and is focused on continuing her important work in the public schools. Susan and her husband’s service to their community is far from over.
Lindsay, another tutor who trained at the Bangor Center, is an educator of 20 years and lives on secluded Cranberry Island in Maine. When COVID hit, she was asked to give literacy instruction to a handful of local children. Lindsay began teaching the students the way she had learned in her educational training; this worked well for one student but not the other two. She began research on structured literacy, a method that had a significant impact on those two struggling students.
When Lindsay’s time with those students ended, she realized how much she loved this style of teaching. She wanted to learn more, so she could continue bringing these methods to more children. She said of her devotion to teaching, “I really wanted to continue to teach kids how to read, because I had kind of fallen in love with it.”
Through her research, she stumbled upon the Children’s Dyslexia Centers. She called the Bangor Center and inquired about receiving certification, a free service the CDC offers to educators. But the commute to those classes twice every week and one Friday every month was far from easy.
“It’s extremely important to try to identify dyslexia as soon as possible.”
The island’s small community uses the ferry, otherwise known as the “mail boat,” to travel to the mainland. After a 45-minute ferry ride, the Bangor Center was another two-and-a-half-hour round-trip drive. Each time Lindsay attended a class, she was devoting about four hours to travel time alone. But she knew she had stumbled upon something that was really calling to her.
“I was shocked at the level and quality of the training at the CDC,” she said. “It’s just a really valuable experience, and living where I live in such a remote place, this will open up so many possibilities for me to continue.”
The experience Lindsay had at the Center only solidified her determination to continue bringing these teaching methods to children struggling with dyslexia. She has since become a literary coach in her school district, working with educators to improve literary instruction. She does reading intervention at the public school in addition to tutoring at the Bangor Center.
After Lindsay receives her second level of certification next year, she hopes to see students privately as well. “There’s kind of an endless need for these kinds of services for kids. In the general population, anywhere from 15-30% of people are dyslexic. And research shows that appropriate and rigorous intervention early on is really essential.”
Devoting time and energy to helping dyslexic children is a labor of love that doesn’t come with a copious paycheck or public accolades.
Both Susan and Lindsay stressed how supportive the Centers are in offering resources, leadership, and advice to educators, even after they’ve completed their certification. Whether they are giving instruction to students at the Center or using their certification to help students in their own schools, tutors who receive training know that the staff at the Children’s Dyslexia Centers is dedicated to supporting them.
Lindsey reiterated, “I am really impressed with the program, and I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity, and keeping the door open so these families can get these services.” It is through this service to others by CDC tutors, center staff, volunteers, and donors that the pulse of the Fraternity beats strong.
For more information on your local Center and how you can help students access essential tutoring resources, please visit: www.ChildrensDyslexiaCenters.org !
