EVERGREEN — Vertical Skills Academy is a school specifically for students with Dyslexia. The academy is the only non-profit private school in the Denver area for students from 1st to 8th grade.
“One out of every five children is Dyslexic so in a typical public school classroom,” instructor Christine Riedlin said. “There are 4-5 kids in that classroom who are struggling.”
“A lot of these kids come in and they’re beat down," teacher Alex Griffen said. “It looks like they’re not participating, it looks like they’re way behind but they are trying the hardest in that class. They just can’t get it.”
Dyslexia is a brain-based learning disorder that can affect reading, writing, and math. People who have Dyslexia have trouble recognizing or processing certain types of information.
“When a person with Dyslexia looks at letters, they’re having a disconnect between what the letter is and what it should say,” Griffen said.
It's a disorder that's affected some of the brightest well-known people like Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci.
“Its kids who are intelligent but are having trouble keeping up with their classmates,” Riedlin said.
“When I was younger everyone could read books,” student Marek Russell said. “I couldn’t, and it made me feel like I was dumb.”
The school uses the Orton-Millingham methodology—using multi-sensory teaching and day-long literacy instruction to let students grow at their own pace.
“Usual students will take about 5, 10, 20 repetitions to remember a word, vocabulary piece or piece of information,” Griffen said. “Whereas our students, it will take at least 60 repetitions in order to hit something.”
The school says these students need as many repetitions as possible and they need to be completely involved in it in order to be learning the best they can.
“Normal curriculum, you’re just moving on and it’s a lot about memory and memorizing it, whereas here, we don’t want them to memorize it, we want them to remember the tools and they have to apply it to what they’re reading,” Griffen said.
“We try to teach the kids the skills of decoding the words,” Riedlin said. “Each child has a unique student and have a unique lesson as well."
The school hopes to build up the confidence of these students with a one-of-a-kind approach to learning.
“Our goal is to get them up to grade level where they‘re feeling confident and have them re-integrate into whatever school they choose,” Griffen said.