Sisters lead charge for change with dyslexia

They may be young but they know how to get things done.

Sisters Bridget and Lillian McNamee of Coeur d’Alene have been working hard to advocate for dyslexic students and increase their learning opportunities.

“I’m really proud of them,” said mom, Liza Marie McNamee. “It’s been very self driven.”

Nine-year-old Bridget is the local representative for state Superintendent Sherri Ybarra’s student advisory council that meets in Boise quarterly.

“I decided to run because I thought there were things I could change for the students to learn better,” Bridget said. “I wanted to help kids with dyslexia.”

Lillian, 11, is in her second year on the Coeur d’Alene School District Elementary Student Advisory Group team, representing Dalton Elementary.

The girls have been raising awareness of dyslexia, as Idaho is one of few states that does not have any dyslexia legislation.

According to The Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, dyslexia affects 20% of the population.

Lillian, who learned she had dyslexia when she was in third grade, described reading with dyslexia as having another set of the same words on the page float off and travel everywhere around the room.

“I find that more fascinating than the actual book I’m reading so I follow the words,” she said.

In her mind, Lillian said there will just be a bunch of copies of the same words moving around everywhere, making it hard to focus and read.

However, special dyslexia font books can help. In this special font, words are spaced farther apart and letters are weighted at the bottom.

Lillian said that in fourth grade, she was scared to raise her hand in class and ask the teacher to read her the questions in the book. She knew if it wasn’t read to her she was most likely going to answer it wrong because the question wasn’t written in dyslexic font.

She said that also made it difficult to read in front of a class.

“It’s embarrassing to stutter in front of people,” Lillian said. “Like when you have to ask what a word is because you don’t know.”

Lillian said there aren’t many dyslexic font books and most are for elementary grade levels.

“I remember the first time I was able to hold a dyslexic font book because I didn’t know they were out there,” she said. “Just being able to hold a book and turn the pages, as silly as that sounds, is my favorite thing to do.”

Lillian also uses a NOOK tablet, which has a special setting to adjust any font to dyslexia font, but said she prefers paper books best.

Their mom said the special font has really helped. They went from reading a book every three weeks to finishing a book every three days. She said Lillian started to do so much better with reading once they started using the dyslexia font because it wasn’t as stressful.

To help others, Lillian said her goal has been to get dyslexic font books in libraries.

The girls decided to team up together, using their leadership roles to raise awareness. They also created a survey to help them better understand the needs of their classmates.

“It’s neat to hear what students think because some of the things they say you wouldn’t have thought about,” Lillian said. “And you wouldn’t have thought that needed to be changed because it’s not a problem to you."

Because of high COVID cases and a high-risk sibling, the girls continued their education at home through Idaho Digital Learning Alliance, but said they're excited to return to Dalton Elementary School in January.

Their mom said the survey was the girls' solution to still be able to capture the voices of students in Dalton Elementary School and understand the needs of their classmates while they weren’t physically in the classrooms.

In the district, Lillian has been raising awareness for dyslexic students for over a year.

Bridget has brought the subject to the attention of Ybarra, who said she plans to continue the conversation with the Legislature.

Bridget recently spoke through her new role in a video at the district board meeting.

Hard work paid off when the girls got a surprise call from Katie Graupman, the district curriculum director, asking them where schools could buy dyslexic font books for district libraries.

“That was really exciting,” Lillian said. “That was like the best thing ever.”

“We were jumping around during the phone call like, ‘Yes!’ and hugging and everything,” Bridget said.

Graupman said district librarians were excited to learn more, and will use the book list Lillian provided as a basis for the search. The goal is to have at least 10 dyslexic font books in each elementary library.

“The District is proud and grateful for Bridget and Lillian's advocacy and support for us to acquire books that will help hundreds of children become readers,” Graupman said. “It is this kind of selfless, courageous, smart and strong leadership that makes our world a better place.”

The girls don’t see their job as finished.

Lillian said after getting dyslexic font books in district libraries, her next goal is to try to get more books printed in dyslexic font.

Through her statewide role, Bridget said she’s hoping to get the special font books into school libraries all over Idaho.

“This is one step, but then there’s always another,” Bridget said.