Private tutoring for children and adolescents with dyslexia using the Orton-Gillingham approach. Many excelled in areas other than language. Leslie Eller, M. Ed.
As a young girl in Detroit, Michigan, I always had desires to be a teacher. Throughout high school and college I worked at various jobs where children were involved like summer camps and tutoring programs. I quickly learned that I had a real passion for special needs children. As an undergraduate student at Wayne State University in Detroit, my major was special education. Upon graduation in 1970,
I moved to Shreveport, Louisiana where I began my teaching career working with special needs children in elementary and middle school settings. After several years, I took a position at Rutherford House, a residential treatment facility for adjudicated youth and became their special education teacher for the next ten years. At that time, little was known about dyslexia, but the majority of my students had severe reading problems and I became very curious about their learning style. I started to get involved in the professional community that was researching the areas of language development and became very interested in their findings. In 1987 I moved back to Michigan with my two daughters and started teaching elementary, middle school and high school students who were placed in special education because of their low reading abilities. Many, again, had so many other strengths but their language difficulties interfered with their ability to read the provided curriculum. In 1992 I was hired as a Teacher Consultant in Dearborn, Michigan, where I was part of the special education team at Lindbergh Elementary. My responsibilities included testing students, working with their teachers and families to help design an appropriate curriculum to meet their individual needs, mentoring with other professionals, presenting teacher-training workshops and teaching multi-sensory strategies in small groups to the students on my caseload. I was initially introduced to a multi-sensory program called Project Read, authored by Torrey Greene and Dr. Enfield. It was designed to help struggling readers and was very successful for the students. I also completed my Masters Degree at Wayne State University in learning disabilities and remained in Dearborn until I moved to Asheville, North Carolina, in 2009. While teaching in Dearborn, I earned several teaching awards, spoke at local, state, and national conferences on learning disabilities, had several articles published in different professional newsletters, enrolled in classes with Dr. Edward Hallowell on ADHD and taught as an adjunct professor at The University of Michigan where I taught Master’s level education students. I also provided summer tutoring to many students using The Project Read model. Reading scores soared! My home for the past five years has been in Asheville, North Carolina, where I retired to be closer to my family. My passion for teaching dyslexic children is on-going and retirement is in the far future! I have earned advanced training through The Key School at Carolina Day School in Asheville, using the Orton-Gillingham approach and have a private practice tutoring children and adolescents with dyslexia and other learning difficulties. I am a member of the Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators (AOGPE) and the Academic Language Therapy Association (ALTA). I stay active in professional development opportunities and absolutely love what I do! There’s nothing better than seeing those smiling faces when success has been achieved! More importantly, I am the parent of a daughter who struggled all through school. As a high school student, she was finally diagnosed with dyslexia when many of our questions finally got answered. Her struggles became mine. I became her advocate and learned as much as I could about the complexities of this specific learning difference. My goals for the future are to continue to educate the public about dyslexia through seminars, publications and my private practice and to continue teaching children and adolescents so that they may reach their full potential.
03/10/2026
Even the were not treated with respect and understanding resulting in educational trauma and loss of well-being.
Almost every dyslexic celebrity talks about educational trauma which resulted in anxiety, depression, loss of self-esteem, loss of well-being, feelings of shame/inadequacy , addictions, mental health struggles, job stress, family stress or other life struggles despite outward success.
1902. Asking the schools and teachers to take action. This is not a new situation.
The dyslexia community has heard about issues related to teacher prep, work PD, politics, policy makers, poverty, the pandemic, people problems and world problems for 149 years .
People and various agencies have been working to improve teacher prep for 76 years.
Thousands of agencies offer free resources to help the schools learn more about dyslexia and related learning differences.
Cox Campus
The Reading League
International Dyslexia Association
Learning Disabilities Association of America
Understood.org
WPS - Western Psychological Services
Reading Rockets
Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity
Canadian Children's Literacy Foundation
Decoding Dyslexia
The Blosser Center for Dyslexia Resources
Margaret Byrd Rawson Institute
Tiered interventions cannot replace or postpone a student’s right to specially designed instruction under IDEA.
MTSS is support, not a waiting room for special education.
If a disability is suspected, the evaluation must move forward.
Intervention and evaluation can happen at the same time.
That’s the law.
03/01/2026
03/01/2026
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True ! The best IEP in the world is not effective if the staff are not skilled to implement the IEP with fidelity.
All teachers can get FREE training from the Cox Campus.
Learning Disabilities Association of America
Understood.org
Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity
Wilson Language Training
Parents for Reading Justice
Decoding Dyslexia
Wrightslaw
Reading with Mrs. Griffin
02/26/2026
Wow. Just wow! You really need to read this remarkable article by Emerson Dickman, Dyslexic Activist! It’s one of the best articles we have ever seen. Honest. Direct. Tell it like it is. Wake up call ☎️ to the public schools to decide it’s ⏰time to do the rights things.⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️
2. We made this graphic to honor his lifetime achievements. The law books in the background are to honor his lifetime of work as a lawyer advocating on behalf of the children and families who deserve the freedom to learn.
The Blosser Center for Excellence in Dyslexia Education.
02/23/2026
When will our schools and educators see the links?
The pipeline to life problems is connected to schools with low quality literacy and numeracy instruction.
Literacy and justice for all.
Addictions are brain-based. Loss of well- being is brain based. All brains matter. Dyslexia is a language-based learning difference.
Too many kids enter kindergarten eager and happy to learn and leave school with educational trauma due to late identification and inadequate remediation. Preventable. Avoidable. Shameful.
Targeted cognitive interventions. High quality instruction. Educators with expertise.
This low quality literacy and numeracy instruction is harming lives. Socially. Emotionally. Spiritually. Physically. Academically. Vocationally. Financially. Deeply consequently across society.
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