The Dyslexia Life

12/19/2025

Hey I’m the nicest person in the whole world til you try to trick parents in IEP meetings and offer balanced literacy!

If holding schools to the law and making legislators educate teachers in line with the Science of Reading is mean…. Cool. I ride at Dawn!

11/25/2025

Here’s what I’d do:

1. Full Educational Psychological Evaluation by a Neuropsychologist, Child Psychologist, or Developmental Pediatrician.

2. Auditory Processing Disorder Evaluation (Ears, Nose, Throat (ENT)

3. Speech-Language Pathologist (testing for Language Processing Disorders).

4. Occupational Therapist- (Testing for handwriting and other age-appropriate skills)

Tasks to be completed at school

1. Write a letter to Request an Evaluation for special education services at public expense to your principal and head of special education services (If you already have a medical diagnosis of SLD/Dyslexia include the paperwork from the doctor.)

2. Sign written consent to start the evaluation (60 days under Federal Law) once you sign consent. If you don't get the consent forms within a week, send an email asking for them again. Document. Document. Document

Find your support

1. Find your state's Department of Education and locate their Parent Rights and Safeguards. These are your rights in your state. 2. Join other support groups on Facebook (Partners in Promise, Wright's Law, Decoding Dyslexia Military(state and regional groups and pages) 3. Find your community support. The road in special education is long. You will need a support person outside of your family (Parent, Spouse, Friend).

Hi, I’m Hilary. I’m a special education advocate serving kids with dyslexia around the world. Providing advocacy, education and IEP meeting support

Comment Checklist to get the list

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11/22/2025

Work with the amazing team at Ladder Learning! Now hiring online Dyslexia tutors for reading, writing, and math.

11/22/2025

I only wish someone had told me in my twenties that delays to get my daughter evaluated would cost of my family dearly. It takes 4 times as long to intervene when it comes to reading in 4th grade. Don’t wait get evaluated for special education and get a neuropsychological evaluation.

11/19/2025

Waiting to see isn’t a strategy it’s a delay tactic.

It is easy to teach reading to everyone in Kindergarten when we use curriculum and teaching in line with the science of reading and we train teachers!

Waiting to see is a tactic played by every US school district in this US.

It’s taught to teachers as a way to lower the number of kids in special education.

Schools have an obligation under CHILD FIND in federal law to find kids with disabilities.

This is how you get help for your kid- Ask for a complete evaluation for special education!

Comment Letter and I’ll send you my template to get help and you can do it in 10 mins.

11/13/2025

💻New on the Blog this month: Dyslexia Awareness

Did you know that according to the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, that approximately 1 in 5 students has dyslexia? 🤯 Check out our latest blog article by Barbara Bratton, who specializes in working with students with dyslexia and Specific Learning Disabilities in reading, to see the latest updates about this learning disability.

🔗: https://thepromiseact.org/dyslexia-awareness/

11/09/2025

Here is the lie that keeps getting repeated all throughout public education.

It’s possible to diagnose dyslexia as early as 4 or 5.

Waiting to see waiting to ask for help waiting to go to neuropsychologist to have your child evaluated only makes it take longer and more money to intervene.

In any other area of modern medicine, we would never tell you to wait and see. Your parents are often told by both educators and doctors to wait and see.

It takes 4 times as long to intervene in 4th grade.

11/05/2025

If you’d told me a few years ago that schools couldn’t teach dyslexic kids to read, I wouldn’t have believed you.

If you’d told me I’d meet many families who spent thousands a year on attorneys just to get basic reading instruction, I would’ve said no way.

If you’d told me those same families would end up in settlements where they actually never got paid, I would have been shocked.

If you’d told me people would spend hundreds of thousands in private school tuitions—money parents planned to save for college—just so their kids could read, I would’ve thought you were crazy.

If you’d told me an IEP team would suggest the “most appropriate setting” for a dyslexic child was a class with a para who could read to their kids, I would’ve said that had to be a joke.

If you’d told me a principal would dismiss a $5,000 neuropsych evaluation because they “trusts her teachers more than someone who spent three days testing your child,” I would’ve said that couldn’t happen.

If you’d told me I’d take cases where we’d have to fight every single year just to get basic reading goals on IEPs, I would’ve never believed it.

If you’d told me I’d meet parents who’d quit their jobs and get Orton-Gillingham certified just to teach their own children, I would’ve said you were out of your mind.

But here we are.
And we’re not laughing anymore.

10/22/2025

Seven years ago I went to talk to a Georgia State Senator about Houston County and my dyslexic kids IEP. I’m sure he thought he’d never see or hear from me again. He didn’t realize I’d become the DDGA Military Liaison and the Decoding Dyslexia Military Parent for GA.

But I’m still here, loudly talking about Dyslexia and military kids.

For the 1 in 5 we are still here fighting for you!

10/22/2025

About last night’s screening of Hopeville: How to End the Reading Wars — it reminded me that this country has the science, the data, and the advocates to finally change how we teach reading.

Right now, 2 out of 3 fourth graders aren’t reading proficiently — not because they can’t learn, but because many are still being taught with outdated Whole Language methods instead of evidence-based instruction.

As a special education advocate for military-connected students, I see this challenge up close. Our military kids move every 2–3 years — new schools, new systems, new IEP teams — and with every transition, consistency in literacy instruction becomes critical. They deserve access to structured literacy, trained teachers, and the same opportunities as their non-military peers, no matter where they’re stationed.

We have the science. We know what works.

Districts need help! They need to ramp up their capacity while empowering parents to advocate confidently for their kids.

Every child deserves evidence-based reading instruction. Every educator deserves the tools and training to deliver it. And every family — especially those serving our country — deserves hope that their child will be supported and understood wherever they go.

💙 Let’s keep fighting the good fight — our kids deserve better.