Personalized support services for parents of children with dyslexia

PRINCETON, NJ — Learning Ally, a nonprofit organization supporting 300,000 students across the U.S., is now providing parents of children who have learning and reading based disabilities with personalized resources to manage their educational and personal needs.

Since it was founded in 1948, Learning Ally has traditionally served families and schools with the world’s largest digital library of accessible, human-narrated audio textbooks and literature titles. The new parent support service, called Parent Ally, was developed after years of exhaustive studies focusing on the experiences and urgent needs of families of students with dyslexia and learning disabilities.

“Parent Ally is the result of research and conversations with thousands of parents who know the challenges involved in searching for solutions to their children’s reading struggles,” says Andrew Friedman, Learning Ally’s President and CEO. “Until today, there was no service offering truly personalized parent-to-parent support and insight around dyslexia. For parents seeking help, it is hugely empowering to hear from another parent of a child with learning differences who can say, ‘I’ve been there before and know what you’re feeling. Here is what worked for me.’ These new services fill a critical information gap for parents and get them to the point of helping their children find success much faster.”

The new Parent Ally offerings include the following:

Parent Support Specialists: One-on-one phone consultations between parents and a team of highly trained professionals in a learning disability-related field, who are themselves parents with firsthand experience raising children with dyslexia and print disabilities. Drawing on many backgrounds, the team of Parent Support Specialists includes family advocates, attorneys, teachers, and certified tutors. Their diversity provides a large knowledge base to help parents find resources and tools that address their particular situation.

Member-only webinars: A regular series of interactive parent training sessions, presented by some of the foremost experts in the field of dyslexia and learning disabilities. These sessions feature small audience sizes and offer extensive opportunities for parents to dialogue together and pose their own questions to the experts.

The Parent Framework: Providing a pathway of proven strategies that help parents navigate the long-term challenges of raising a child with print disabilities. It includes guidance on how to both manage a child’s education and develop her self-esteem and confidence.

“The results we’re looking for with Parent Ally include kids who can confidently manage their school reading challenges and feel better about themselves, and families that quickly find support and relief through resources that are best suited for them,” says Friedman. “I’m happy to note that early parental experiences with the program have been very encouraging.”

“Learning Ally and Parent Ally are helping to make middle school a little less scary,” reports Amy W., who recently participated in an interactive member webinar on identifying dyslexia. Dorrie P., the mother of a dyslexic middle schooler in Maryland, says: “Learning Ally has literally changed our daughter’s life. We were able to get the right accommodations put into her 504 plan; she has become successful in school, and we feel like her future is very bright. This experience has taken away a lot of frustration and stress from the entire family.”

Parent Ally is included as part of the standard Learning Ally audiobook service membership for free through October 31. For more information visit the Parent Ally resource section on Learning Ally’s website.