Biography

In the midst of attaining a Master's Degree, Jane found her passion was to teach the dyslexic population. It all began when a friend was concerned about her bright son. He was in middle school and still couldn't read, write or spell well. Teachers didn't know how to help him. She was encouraged to have him tested at the Michigan Dyslexia Institute to see if dyslexia was the issue. She decided to do that and found that her son was severly dyslexic. That diagnosis was a relief, but there was no help in northern Michigan. My friend, along with other parents of struggling children asked the founder of MDI to come to Petoskey to train teachers. Every school district in the county sent teachers to be trained and Jane was one of them. It changed her life and direction. Jane wrote her Master thesis on "A Comparison of two teaching approaches and the effects they have on the reading acievement of dyslexic learners" Jane was asked to be the Director of the MDI branch of Northern Michigan. She held that role for 14 years. She trained teachers and spoke all over northern Michigan to help people understand dyslexia and raise scholarship money for families that needed financial help, To date, Jane has taught over 8,500 one-on-one lessons. She is a co-author of a K-5 curriculum and teaching manual. Jane says, "My job is to give a student the tools needed to read, write and spell so they don't need me any more." Her students put it best, however, saying, "I know how to unlock words and retrieve spelling rules, so I it doesn't matter what comes up now because I can work through it." In 2000, Jane and her sister began to write K-5 curriculum, designed for the dyslexic population because they were unable to find such a tool available. In 2012 they took sample of the work to the University of Florida. They were told it was the 'missing piece' in U of F Special Ed curriculum and were asked to come and train Master level special education students. Jane hopes to expand their work to a national platform. Jane would like to be part of the Bristol Who's Who registry for the recognition that the organization offers and to network with other like-minded professionals that assist and educate children with learning disabilities.