Nemours BrightStart! Featured on Good Morning America

The Nemours BrightStart! Dyslexia Initiative was recently featured on a national broadcast of Good Morning America-Health. The segment recognized the program’s innovative approach to tackling one of America’s most inhibiting yet overlooked educational issues. On Thursday, March 19, Dr. Laura Bailet, creator and executive director of the Nemours BrightStart! Dyslexia Initiative, spoke to a national audience about the one-of-a-kind program that is making a difference in children’s lives and closing early literacy gaps in students just in time for kindergarten.

“People frequently refer to the ‘achievement gap’ that exists in elementary school between typical developing learners and those who struggle,” stated Dr. Laura Bailet. “The Nemours BrightStart! Dyslexia Initiative has found strong evidence that this achievement gap exists in reading readiness in pre-K students and can be measured. More importantly, Nemours is working with at-risk children to close that gap early. It has been found that results are best when children are identified early and given the appropriate educational instruction. Without early intervention, dyslexia can create a gap between learning aptitude and achievement in school that becomes harder to close over time. Unfortunately, if a child is not reading on grade level by third grade, there is only a one in seven chance that the child will ever read on grade level.”

In order to combat this problem, Dr. Bailet and her team designed the Nemours BrightStart! Dyslexia Initiative based on research on how the brain processes information. By bringing together pediatric specialists, researchers, and early learning experts, Nemours created a universal, individualized screening and unique educational intervention program for pre-K students which is literally catching kids before they have a chance to fail. The educational intervention program is providing remarkable results, with nearly 70% of all at-risk children catching up to their peers. Some of the initial results from BrightStart!’s ongoing research will be published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Learning Disabilities later this year.

The Nemours BrightStart! Dyslexia Initiative stands out because the program is community-based. Nemours, in following its mission, takes the program into the community. The program currently operates in 120 sites in Jacksonville, FL and the Nap Ford Community School in Orlando, FL. Nemours BrightStart! mobile classrooms allow the program to go even further into surrounding communities. Nemours BrightStart! services also include workshops for parents, teachers and child care workers, as well as community awareness and advocacy efforts related to this major child health issue.

To view the segment from Good Morning America, please click here.

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