They Teach Dyslexics How to Learn : Education: The only facility of its kind in Orange County, Costa Mesa’s Prentice Day School offers hope to afflicted youngsters and their concerned parents.

Feeling a mixture of fear and desperation, Lisa Giffi called Prentice Day School last year hoping that it could do for her 11-year-old daughter, Jennifer, what two school districts and countless teachers could not: help her learn.

Jennifer is dyslexic.

Like many children with the disorder, she seemed unable to master such basic skills as reading and spelling. By the time she entered fourth grade, Jennifer read at less than a first-grade level. Her slow progress was all the more puzzling because she excelled in other activities like drama and singing.

“She was just as smart as her friends. But she just felt so inadequate,” Giffi said of Jennifer’s festering frustration. “It just tore me apart. I thought it couldn’t keep going like this. She seemed deemed to fail.”

Not anymore.

Since enrolling in Orange County’s only school designed specifically for dyslexic students, both Jennifer’s reading and her outlook have improved.

For parents like Giffi, the 6-year-old campus in a quiet residential neighborhood of Costa Mesa is a source of hope and strength.

Dedicated to the notion that dyslexic children are just as intelligent as their non-dyslexic peers, Prentice Day School challenges its 100 students with tough lessons taught in a way they can understand.

For many students, the school offers what might be their best chance of acquiring the special skills needed to overcome the barriers erected by the disorder.

“They are very bright and often very creative. The difference is in the way their minds process information,” said Nancy Royal, the school’s executive director. Often, “they try and try and try again, but they continue to experience failure and frustration. They come to settle for being less than they can be.”

About 10% to 15% of the nation’s population is dyslexic. And although dyslexic people can find life difficult at times, many are able to overcome the disorder. Thomas Edison, Woodrow Wilson and Albert Einstein did.

Scientists know relatively little about the disorder. Most agree that dyslexia is not the result of brain damage or a blow to the head, as is commonly assumed. Rather, the disorder occurs before birth and has to do with the way the brain is formed, Royal said.

Dyslexia affects the way people organize, file and retrieve information. Dyslexic people often have trouble finding the right words to explain thoughts. Some also find it difficult to focus on specific sounds. In many cases, they reverse the letters in words.

These problems often manifest themselves in spelling and reading problems. People with dyslexia “often find it very hard to show their abilities,” Royal said. “They have good ideas but can’t show them.”

That’s something Giffi and other parents know all too well. What many didn’t realize until their children enrolled at Prentice is that with help, dyslexic students can learn to articulate the ideas that at other schools remained hidden.

The Prentice program does this by providing students with a strategy for “learning how to learn.”

At its heart, the approach breaks down seemingly complex material into understandable chunks that dyslexic students can digest. The concepts behind each lesson are reinforced in written, verbal and visual forms.

Lessons are presented from a variety of different angles, giving students several opportunities to scrutinize the material and decipher what it all means.

During a recent lesson on current events, a Prentice teacher read her sixth- and seventh-grade class a newspaper article about the separation of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. The students had newspapers of their own and read along silently.

Every few sentences, the teacher stopped and summarized what they had just read. They also analyzed the story’s headline, dateline and location within the paper. Throughout all this, the students discussed various aspects of the story. Later, the students read the story again to themselves.

While time-consuming, the lesson ensured that all students knew what the article was about, Royal said.

The Prentice approach differs from that of public schools in its reliance on visual aids and out-loud reading and the way each subject is dissected and discussed at length.

“If we didn’t pick it apart, you wouldn’t get the same kind of reaction from the students. We really want them to understand the concepts,” Royal said. “We would never just give them a book to read.”

Such techniques are enhanced by the relatively small teacher-to-student ratio. Class size rarely exceeds 15 students, who receive attention from both instructors and teachers’ aides.

A main goal of the school is to prevent dyslexic young people from falling into the familiar traps of public schools. Dyslexic students often become class clowns to mask their questions. Some transform their frustrations into anger, while others simply withdraw in silence.

“They prefer hiding or being the clown rather than facing the truth,” Royal said. “They get very good at hiding.”

Prentice gives dyslexic students the opportunity to be the class brain instead of the loudmouth, to stand up and participate in class rather than cower quietly in the back of the room.

Studies have found that the Prentice approach, practiced at a handful of schools across the country, can dramatically improve student performance, Royal said.

Students admit that the work is hard. But most agree that it is also fulfilling.

“I think it’s just awesome,” said Colleen Gray, 13, of Tustin. “We get so much attention from the teachers.”

But school officials are the first to admit that the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school can only do so much for people for whom dyslexia means a lifetime of adjustments.

At its most successful, the Prentice program provides dyslexic youngsters with a foundation for reading and learning. With supportive families and a strong work ethic, dyslexic children have a good chance of succeeding in school and in life.

That is what Lisa and Jennifer Giffi are counting on.

For the mother, the prospect of Jennifer suffering through an unhappy and unproductive school career was all the more troubling because the same thing had happened years ago to Giffi’s dyslexic brother, who eventually dropped out of high school in frustration.

“When Jennifer started having problems, it was like this was my little brother all over again,” said Giffi. “I had to do something.”

Jennifer spent four years in Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa public schools, where she attended a variety of special programs for slow learners. But nothing seemed to work.

Enrolling Jennifer in Prentice was no easy feat. A single mother, Giffi was forced to hold garage and bake sales at her home to help pay the $8,610 annual tuition fee.

But to her, it was well worth it.

“She’s doing so much better here,” Giffi said. “It’s really dramatic.”