A Thousand Oaks learning center is helping children with early dyslexia screenings. Gordon Tokumatsu reports for the NBC4 News on May 17, 2023.
Millions of children suffer from dyslexia, but one learning center in Thousand Oaks is seeking to help with early screenings.
Victoria Alexander and her family knew her son Gabe needed help from the first time he entered preschool.
“We need him to be tested. there's something going on,” Alexander said she told school administrators and teachers.
But time and again, they got the same answer from teachers who knew little about his condition and less about how to diagnose it.
Get top local stories in Southern California delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC LA's News Headlines newsletter.
“He just needs to work harder. He's just lazy,” Alexander said.
This continued through first grade, she says, and Gabe suffered greatly. Unable to figure out why school gave him such anxiety, why the simplest classroom tasks seemed nearly impossible as well as playground bullying.
It wasn't until Gabe turned eight that he was properly diagnosed, but not in school.
Local
Get Los Angeles's latest local news on crime, entertainment, weather, schools, COVID, cost of living and more. Here's your go-to source for today's LA news.
Private testing indicated he has "profound dyslexia,” a condition where everything from printed words and letters to spoken sounds are jumbled and hard to comprehend.
Gabe is now a much happier, healthier 12-year-old.
He's taken up hobbies like painting and playing guitar and he's getting the help he needs from Stowell learning centers in Thousand Oaks.
“He was completely shut down. He was so embarrassed about not being able to read,” Jill Stowell, founder and CEO of Stowell learning centers, said. “He has learned to read; he's coming out of his shell.”
This year, the state of California is finally joining most of the rest of the country in the early diagnosis of dyslexia, screening for children as young as kindergarten.
Starting in 2025, California schools will be required to start testing for dyslexia, and teachers will be trained to administer the tests.
Governor Gavin Newsom, who struggles with dyslexia himself, is expected to allocate a million dollars to the cause in his upcoming budget.
