Holly Heinen, Dyslexia Tutor

During the summer before Holly’s seventh child entered kindergarten, she accepted a post as lunch lady at his school with a fall start date. Immediately following, a teacher approached her about a tutoring position, working with students with Dyslexia. The school had two tutors. Would Holly be willing to be a back-up tutor? She wasn’t really interested, and she hated the idea of giving up part of her summer to take the necessary training in the Barton Reading and Spelling System. But Holly has a kind heart, a love for children, and a soft spot for the underdog. After some prayer on the matter, she reluctantly agreed and trudged off to take “the dumb class”. Good-bye glorious summertime; hello classroom. Holly found something interesting there –“I had good spelling and phonics to begin with, so learning why words are spelled as they are was really neat!” She enjoyed the class. The program was “cool!”

Holly had barely begun serving up hot lunch when one of the tutors announced she was moving out of town. That left Holly with a ladle in one hand and reading manipulatives in the other. And she faced an even bigger problem. She inherited students stranded mid-way through a program that was brand new to her. She had a weekend to process levels one through five so that she could tutor level six. Another tutor declared the task impossible, but Holly met the challenge! She could see how God had paired her skills and passions with this opportunity to help.

For three years Holly hustled between the kitchen and the resource room, feeling frustrated. She saw how the students blossomed during her tutoring. Not only could she teach them to read, she could erase their feelings of inadequacy, encourage their progress, bolster their confidence and launch their success. As her list of students grew, she happily she hung up her apron and embraced tutoring full-time.

Interested in tutoring Dyslexic students? Holly recommends that you possess the physical ability to hear sounds distinctly. “When you hear the word ‘grasp’, do you hear 5 separate letters?” Do you love the underdog? If you would like to rescue a student in distress, replacing the feeling of stupidity with one of intelligence, then this might be the challenge for you!

For more information on the Barton System www.bartonreading.com