First Recipient of the Annual Parent Scholarship

July 2019 

Jazmin is a wife and mom of 4 wonderful kids.  She is a committed mom who is determined to support her children in any way possible for them to reach their potential and be the best that they can be.  The Reading and Learning Clinic of Manitoba is thrilled to be able to help support Jazmin in her journey.

Parent Recipient October 2019

My name is Kathy and I am the proud mother of two incredible and busy teenagers.  My husband and I have watched our son struggle with reading, writing and reading comprehension for most of his school years.  Homework was one argument after another, which often ended with us telling him to try harder, and him throwing up his hands saying he was just “stupid” and “it was good enough”.  When we heard a diagnosis of Dyslexia and Dysgraphia as he entered grade 10, we were both angry and relieved; angry at a school system that let this go without assistance for years, relieved that we now knew what we were dealing with, that David now KNOWS he’s not “stupid”.  Although I am optimistic about his learning future, I am a realist and am very aware that he doesn’t have many years left before graduation. 

 I am very grateful to the Reading and Learning Clinic of Manitoba for including me in this course.  Being a part of this program will provide me with the skills/knowledge to better help our son figure out how best he learns, advocate for what he needs at school to assist him, and ultimately, help him recognize his own potential, in order that he again embraces the idea that he can do anything he wants to do when “he grows up”.  Thank you Valdine.

Thank you again for the opportunity!

Parent Participant – April 2020

I am a second year Ph.D. student at the University of Victoria with a specialization in Language and Literacy. I am a single parent here in Canada. My daughter is in grade 2 at a public elementary school in Victoria. She started her early school years in my home country, Nigeria. I have discovered she struggles with reading since she was five and have since been trying to find ways to help her get better with her reading. At first, I thought it was an issue of concentration but recently, I discovered it wasn’t just about her concentration, she finds it difficult to sound some words. I have taught her how to break up words for easy pronunciation, but she still hasn’t been able to apply it. Sometimes, she feels afraid to say the words even when what she’s saying silently is correct. From her last term report, her teacher reported, and I have also noticed she reads better with her fingers instead of her eyes. So, anytime I ask her to withdraw her finger from the book, she becomes very slow and feels withdrawn. All these prompted my search on how to support and help her to read with confidence. I am so glad I found the Reading and Learning Clinic of Manitoba in my search to find ways to support my daughter’s reading. I am very excited about the opportunity given to me by Valdine to be a parent participant in the April 2020 cohort. Most importantly, I look forward to drinking from the wealth of knowledge that will be shared during the training to support my daughter to be bold and confident to read without fears and struggle.

Oyebisi

Parent Participant – 2021

Valdine Bjornson and through her Orton Gillingham is the gift that 2020 gave us. My daughter Tizita was diagnosed in Grade 4 with severe Dyslexia, Dysgraphia and Dyscalculia Like many who have to navigate education with a child that is Dyslexic we have had experiences that could fill a book. The internet is full of information and theories about the greatest therapy or remediation for dyslexics. This is incredibly hard to wade through and the blindspot in education around Dyslexia complicates things further.  It was only the couple years previous to learning about Valdine that I understood the importance of Orton Gillingham as the best method of instruction for Dyslexics. By this time Tizita was in Grade 6 and we were getting desperate. 

The problem became finding someone who could work with my daughter. Thanks to a friend I found out that Valdine was doing OG instruction via Zoom. We reached out and she agreed to take us on. As a result of starting to work with Valdine the two Student Support teachers at my daughters school have taken the Classroom Educator OG training. This has meant further instruction daily at school for Tizita. 

For the past year I have had the privilege of sitting beside Tizita for each session and learning along with her.  The more I learned the more I wanted to learn.  When I expressed interest in applying for the 2022 Parent Scholarship for the Classroom Educator training, Valdine  kindly invited me to join the next available training on scholarship rather than wait.  This has given me a greater level of confidence when Tizita and I read together. If I don’t know something I now have the resources provided with the training to look it up. Our journey and the experience of the past year has made me an advocate for families and Dyslexic kids. We have the long-term view knowing that nothing is a quick fix for a severe dyslexic but that OG gives Tizita the strongest foundation possible.