Essentials to Success was born out of personal experience. the difficulty of watching two of our own children struggle with dyslexia, and witnessing the same thing in the in the classroom. Lisa taught fourth, fifth, and sixth grades with an online school, which our children also attended. She was troubled by what she saw, each year, and in every classroom...bright children who without explanation struggled to read and write. In her desire to help these kids, and after months of extensive research, the most probable conclusion that she could come to was that these children were dyslexia. With quiet determination, Lisa set out to find the necessary resources with which she could successfully help these children. Once settled on what she belived to be a promising program for dyslexics, Lisa began to set the stage. First, she shared with the parents what she believed to be the reason for their childrens reading struggles. Next, she obtained their permission to work with the kids trying new methods of reading and spelling instruction. Lisa also wanted to work with these six kids face to face, this would have to take place after school hours, on her own time, and would require a physical location. Lisa spoke with the people at the local fire station and was able to reserve the community room two nights a week. Everything was set in place, now only time would tell whether this new approach to breaking through the barrier of language acquisition with these children, would work.
After a year of consistent instruction accompanied with practiice in the home, Lisa, the parents and the chidren were all thrilled to see marked improvement in the children's reading and writing skills. They had broken through! Lisa took her findings directly to the school, and by that summer the school had asked Lisa if she would be willing to to implement this program school wide that fall! For the next three years, she work with the school helping struggling children and families from all walks of life. It was in 2011 that we made the decision to branch out on our own. We recognized that there were untold numbers of people young and old who needed access to affordable help with the struggles caused by dyslexia. We took the model that Lisa had developed in the school and modified it to create our own unique resource that we could make availabe to all.
Essentials to Success was created to address a handful of issues we have observed through the years.
Educating:
Dyslexia is still greatly misunderstood today. Through education, we want to help in taking
away the mystery.
Dyslexia Testing:
Dyslexia testing is expensive, and is not normally covered by insurance, so we offer free
dyslexia screenings and consultation.
Working With Schools:
Parents are often unaware of how to coordinate with the schools in order to best educate their
children. We teach parents what they can expect from schools and how to work with teachers
and administrators to achieve this.
Remediation:
The cost of individual instruction is often priced higher than many parents are able to afford. So
we offer three options for differing budgets and differing needs. Specifically, we developed an
affordable system that enables parents to partner with Essentials to Success as we equip, train,
and support them to work with their children in the arena of language acquisition.
At Essentials to Success, we want to put an end to the confusion, frustration and sorrow that dyslexics and their families have contended with for generations. We want to clear away the fog and feeling of hoplesness and discouragement that has not only plagued students but also their teachers and parents. While there will certainly be struggles, with understanding, patience, consistency and curriculum approptiate for dyslexic students, we can open the way to a generation of brilliant, capable readers and writers.
Rick and Lisa Weaver