Finding answers
Conway woman starts dyslexia support group
Jennifer Stanley, who describes herself as a voracious reader, knew something was wrong when her younger daughter still struggled with reading in second grade.
It took years to figure out the “something” was dyslexia.
Stanley is starting the Conway Dyslexia Support Group to help others with their journey.
“I want to establish a true community of people who can benefit from each other’s knowledge,” she said.
The first meeting will be at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Faulkner County Library in Conway, 1900 Tyler St.
Stanley said she and her husband, Jake, felt alone as they fought to figure out why Bella Grace, now almost 10, couldn’t read.
Jennifer and Jake Stanley have two older children, Chaz Windle, 18; and Kate Stanley, 12.
Jake could relate to Bella Grace. He said that when he was growing up, he struggled with reading, too.
“I always hated it,” he said. “Words would basically reverse on me. I did anything I could to avoid reading.”
His parents took him to an eye doctor because they thought it was his vision. He realized after helping Bella Grace that he also has dyslexia.
Jennifer said dyslexia often runs in families.
The Dyslexia Association
describes dyslexia as “neurologically based, often familial, which interferes with the acquisition and processing of language.” The association also states there is no cure for dyslexia, but there are coping strategies.
The National Institutes of Health adds that dyslexia is characterized by “difficulty with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities.”
“It’s completely a brain thing,” Jennifer said.
Jake, 40, graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a degree in administrative management and is an insurance agent. Jennifer, 41, has a degree in professional and technical writing from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a master’s degree in writing from UALR. She is a corporate proposal manager.
“I love to read; I’ll read three books at a time,” she said.
Their older children, straight-A students, could recite the alphabet at a young age and read early, but Bella Grace didn’t catch on as quickly.
“She went to preschool and couldn’t sing the alphabet song,” Jennifer said.
In kindergarten, Bella Grace was “doing the typical transposing of numbers and letters.” Her first-grade teacher “was just fantastic,” Jennifer said, and mentioned dyslexia.
However, the school district placed Bella Grace in intervention, but not for dyslexia.
“We were unable to get her formally diagnosed through the school district,” Jennifer said. “They started testing her for things, and she’d pass these tests. We couldn’t get anywhere within the confines of the school system.”
In second grade, Bella Grace couldn’t read.
Jennifer said one of the saddest days of her life was when Bella Grace came home at the end of first grade after standardized testing.
“She just burst into tears. She said, ‘The test is so hard. It’s so hard because I can’t read.’ It broke my heart.”
The couple went to a
private facility and paid to get their daughter tested.
“We got our formal diagnosis [of dyslexia] toward the end of second grade; she was 7,” Jennifer said. “Once we got our formal diagnosis, I got the attention of our school and requested a 504 [Plan] meeting” to discuss accommodations for Bella Grace’s disability.
The first semester of Bella Grace’s third-grade year, the school paired her with an interventionist who works with a dyslexia-based intervention program, Connections.
“She’s on grade level for the very first time,” Jennifer said of fourth-grader Bella Grace, but it has taken all these years and all these tests and all this intervention.
How did it change her daughter?
“She is like a different child,” Jennifer said. “She can actually read chapter books now.”
Jennifer said Bella Grace even participated in a book club at the public library.
“[Getting help] completely transformed her experience at school. It transformed her as
a student and person. It just took getting what we needed,” Jennifer said.
“I read everything you could possibly read, I think, when we were going through it. Sally Shaywitz wrote in the book Overcoming Dyslexia, ‘I strongly believe that behind the success of every disabled child is a passionately committed, intensely engaged and totally empowered parent,’” Jennifer said.
“That stuck with me all that time. It’s true, and Bella Grace is lucky because she has parents who saw this problem and worked with the school, and we pushed and went forward. It’s about not being afraid to take that extra step and do what’s necessary for your child,” she said.
“I have a heart for these kids who are in the foster system or have parents who are not able to advocate for the child,” Jennifer said.
She said it had been on her heart for a while to start a dyslexia support group.
“Jake and I felt pretty alone. We didn’t have any friends in our immediate circle who had been through this. We had no one to bounce these things off of except each other,” she said. “It would have been invaluable to say, ‘Hey, this is what we’re going through in second grade.’ Now I’m looking down the barrel of a middle school child with dyslexia and a 504 Plan.”
Those are the types of situations where connecting with other parents could help, she said.
“Parents may say, ‘Hey, my child’s teacher says she has reading issues,’ and they can find out where to go. Maybe your child’s in high school, and you’re worried about college. You might want to connect with parents and kids and find out what’s available [at college].”
Jennifer has a “wish list” of speakers for the meetings, including an interventionist.
Jake said he thinks the support group will help others and he echoed his wife’s comments.
“We’re by no means experts, but we just really didn’t know anybody else to talk to, to bounce ideas off,” he said. “You just want to talk to somebody who has gone through the same thing to give you a level of comfort, or a level of hope. That’s what we want to do, in addition to bringing in experts.”
More information is available by emailing Jennifer at or on the Conway Dyslexia Support Group Facebook page.
The plan now is for the support group to meet quarterly, Jennifer said. She said it is open to parents, caregivers, educators and anyone who wants to learn more about dyslexia.
“I feel like the more the better,” she said. “I feel like building a community of people would be the ideal outcome for this.”
Jennifer said her No. 1 goal is in the name — support.
“I think we can all learn from each other,” she said.