New Albany school gives parents look at learning difficulties

NEW ALBANY, Ohio (WCMH) -- Back in elementary school, being called on to read out loud was scary for people, but imagine how much scarier it would be if someone had dyslexia, ADHD or another learning difficulty.  

Teachers at Marburn Academy set up activities on Thursday to simulate dyslexia to help people better understand the challenges.  

Many students at Marburn Academy have ADHD, dyslexia or executive functioning difficulties like having trouble paying attention or poor organization or planning skills.  

A good number of the participants in the simulations had a student at Marburn. 

“To have dyslexia in a classroom can look different for all students but really it is a difficulty with the sounds of our language, with decoding words, with language comprehension,” said Stephanie Royal, the executive director of Marburn Education Collaborative.  

For one dyslexia simulation, participants had to read out loud but some of the words were in code with random symbols. Another simulation had them write in cursive with their non-dominant hand. In the third, people were given a book with some words and some symbols they had to memorize. These were all clearly difficult for the participants.  

“It simulated how a number of kids, including my oldest child, would try to memorize words from page to page but wasn’t able to do that very effectively,” said Marburn parent Wendy Hansen-Smith, whose child has dyslexia.  

Royal said that was exactly the point of the exercise.  

“We are trying to simulate the feel of that, the frustrations you can feel when you are trying so hard to read what’s on a page or learn your letters or learn your sounds,” Royal said. 

Hansen-Smith had one of her children go to Marburn for middle school and her other child is currently at the academy. She said she has never experienced any difficulty reading or learning, so she gained a lot of empathy for her kids Thursday night.  

“There’s one thing to know something in your head of how difficult it is and another to experience something that simulates that,” Hansen-SMith said. “It puts it right here where before it was just in my head.” 

The people who participated in the simulation said they came out with a much better understanding of the learning challenges many kids face.