Like so many people who find their way to their life's work, my path to Ravinia Reading Center was not a straight one. I was first a speech-language pathologist and, because I felt like I didn't know enough of what I wanted to know, I decided to pursue a doctoral degree in the field of learning disabilities, concentrating on reading. With that, I thought I'd be better able to understand and help the many children who were not able to learn to read with school instruction alone. When I finished my Ph.D., I set up a private practice, helping those who came to learn to read. The practice flourished, and many of my students did better, but I had a caseload of kids who were slipping through my fingers. Although I understood some of the pieces, I didn';t really know how to put them together. I was always anxious because when kids improved, I didn't actually know why, or how to duplicate that success.

After a while I had a student, a boy who I couldn't reach at all. Even with my training and experience, I didn't know enough to help the readers having the most difficulty. I had heard of an approach called Orton-Gillingham developed in the 1940s, and, even though I didn't really know what I was signing up for, I needed to know more. This almost accidental foray into a workshop turned out to be a godsend. Even in the first Orton-Gillingham class I took, the whole approach felt right. It filled in my blanks and it seemed to hold answers for the problems I was seeing.

I used Orton-Gillingham with the boy about whom I had such concern. I continued to train in it and then began to use it with all my students. What I found was that although some children seemed to be able to learn using any method, all my students were able to learn using this one.

The end of the story about that particular little boy is that his mother called, teary, on a spring day after we had been working together for a time. The family was Jewish and he had read the four questions at their Passover meal by himself, a momentous passage for him. He's now a voracious reader. There are so many stories like that. The students were thriving. I had a method and I finally felt like I really knew what I was doing and why.

Sometime after that, the government's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development created a National Reading Panel. Its findings began to be published in 1999. Specialists in any field have to keep very current in the literature, but specific research findings tend to work their way more slowly toward generalists, like teachers, who have to know something about everything. Some teachers still don't have this information.

There had been so much infighting in the reading world about the best approach, and meanwhile, our children were falling through the cracks. So the Panel's task was to evaluate the more than 100,000 studies on reading to see what worked.

I was pleased to find that the research was consistent with what I had discovered - that systematic phonics instruction is the one the Panel found to produce significant benefits for children having difficulty learning how to read. Our experience has borne that out. As a bonus, the analysis revealed that it was the best approach for all K-6 schoolchildren. What the Panel determined is that it's not the specific commercial materials that matter most, but that the instruction meets the Panel's criteria. There is more than one program that is based on systematic phonics.

Orton-Gillingham is the grandfather of many of the commercially packaged programs currently in fashion. But it's an approach, not a commercial product, and certification in Orton-Gillingham is not tied to purchasing any materials. We have found the depth of understanding it offers practitioners about struggling readers and the reading process is far superior to anything else that exists. Naturally, we tailor it to suit each child's specific needs. Orton-Gillingham offers us that flexibility, again, because it's not a program; it's a far-reaching approach.

Misunderstanding abounds about phonics. Phonics is seen as dreary. But in fact it is fun when taught correctly, encourages a love of literature, and promotes creativity. One of my favorite stories to illustrate this is about the little boy who was mad that RRC was closed on Halloween. This feisty, bright child told his mom that it was more fun to go to RRC than to trick or treat.

Anything as amazingly complex as reading is difficult to master and it takes repetition and practice. The ease of the lucky ones belies how difficult reading really is. It's learned so differently than speech which is natural; we are biologically wired to speak. The alphabet, on the other hand, is an invention. It's based on the discovery that each spoken word comes apart into smaller sounds and that symbols could be created to represent the sounds.

Louisa Moats, author of the Parenting A Struggling Reader, says that teaching reading IS rocket science. Before I continue, I want to say this: do not despair at the complexity of the process. I haven't disclosed that to scare you but to reflect to you why reading really is so difficult. All children learn at different rates. Some learn faster and some learn slower, but with the right kind of instruction, they can all learn.

When the demand in my practice became too great and I could not squeeze in one more child, I had to turn families away or expand. It's hard to turn children away when you know there's help available. So I looked very long and hard for another good teacher and when I found her, I hired her and trained her. And when she was full, I hired another and did the same thing. And another. Ravinia Reading Center was born.

I have found that the training and experience that speech-language pathologists receive is conducive to this work, so many of our teachers at RRC are from a speech and language background. I require a Master's degree because it provides a base for our rigorous selection process. I provide extensive training to every teacher I hire. We match students with the right teacher after we talk with the families.

After a while, I couldn't teach anymore because of the training and leadership necessary for our teachers' continuing excellence. Not teaching has also allowed me to begin to fulfill a very urgent need in our profession: that of developing good, usable materials. Our proprietary materials enable your children to learn better. They have been developed specifically to address the very real reading issues we see in our work at the Center. Whenever there is a need for something new, I develop it.

The Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators certifies its practitioners at four levels. I am a Fellow of the Academy, the highest certification available, the only one in the state of Illinois and of fewer than 150 in the whole world. As a Fellow, I am qualified to train and prepare practitioners for Orton-Gillingham practice. Additionally, Ravinia Reading Center has become a formal candidate for dual accreditation, both as a training site and as a clinic. This means that our staff receives accredited training and your children benefit from a demanding accreditation process for the Center that ensures the most incisive understanding of reading instruction.

At Ravinia Reading Center we work as a professional team and I am in constant communication with my staff. As a parent of two children, I envision the Center not only as a professional but as a mother, too. I want a commitment from those working with my children that they communicate about anything they see as soon as they see it.

So here's my commitment to you: Your child's reading will always be my foremost professional goal. That you are here lets me know it's a priority for you and your family. As such I will contact you if there is something to report that I feel you will want to know - that I'd want to know as a parent. In that way together we can dedicate ourselves to your child's continued growth and fulfillment as a reader.