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October 1, 2003Focusing on dyslexiaSinger comes home to support the causeByRecord-Eagle staff writer When Kim Dolanski competes at the Pittsburgh district competition of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in January, she'll be up against nearly two dozen of the Great Lakes region's best vocalists. But then Dolanski is familiar with adversity. As a dyslexic child growing up in Traverse City, she had to work twice as hard as other students her age to keep up in the classroom.
Called "Opera in the Afternoon," the concert is one of several annual fund-raising events for the 17-year-old Dyslexia Association, which provides education, charitable and supportive services to people with dyslexia, said director Patricia Dolanski. Proceeds will provide tuition scholarships for tutorial services and help extend those services year-round. "Dyslexia is not a respecter of your income, so we want to make sure that no matter who they are, people get the assistance they need when they walk in the door," she said. If her name sounds familiar, it's because Pat Dolanski is Kim's mother. In fact, it was Pat who first guessed her daughter had a learning disability - one she suspects she herself had as a girl, though dyslexia wasn't recognized back when she was a student. "Dyslexia tends to run in families. It's an inherited issue," she said. "When I was a little girl I had a very tough time in school. I didn't learn how to read until the fourth grade and I never was a very good speller." While teachers insisted that Kim had attention deficit disorder, Pat thought differently. And when tests confirmed her fears, she turned to her special education training for help in guiding her daughter. Instead she found her background wasn't useful in dealing with dyslexia, a learning disability of neurological origin that is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities, according to the International Dyslexia Association. Then she heard about Orton-Gillingham, a revolutionary method of teaching dyslexics. "They don't learn by looking at something and memorizing it. They have to break the code of learning in a different way," she said. "They learn best with phonics and phonic rules and multi-sensory learning like sand trays and carpet squares." At first Pat was on the phone weekly for advice on using the method. Then she took an intensive three-week course and began assisting other dyslexic students at her daughter's elementary school. After receiving phone calls from parents desperate for her help, she began training others in using the techniques. And in 1985, she founded the Grand Traverse Dyslexia Association from a small office in the basement of Trinity Lutheran School. Today the association's 25 tutors - all trained in using the Orton-Gillingham method - assist an average of 125 students a year who are struggling to learn to read, Pat said. The association also offers training sessions in the spring and fall for people interested in becoming tutors and for parents who want to learn how to help their children. Although Kim's learning dis ability is relatively mild, she says it caused frustration throughout her adolescence, especially when teachers compared her to her brainy sister or implied she just wasn't working hard enough. "Where I had a really hard time was with math," she recalled. "I reversed my numbers all the time. If I had a problem like '387 times something,' I would write '378 times something' and therefore do really poorly in math." Recognizing that her daughter was a tactile learner and especially rhythmic, Pat sought alternative ways of reaching her. When Kim had to study anatomy for a high school science class, for instance, Pat introduced what she called "a walk through the body." "We'd write all the nerves and bones of the body on flash cards and lie them out on the floor where they would be on a body and walk through them until I would memorize them without the cards," Kim said. Today Kim, 26, applies much the same learning methods to her music, which she sings in several languages. Originally a flutist, she discovered her vocal talent while a student at Traverse City Central High, where she joined the choir to get out of a gym class. "For me music is always easy, but music theory has always been very difficult," she said. "I see it as a pattern, I see a spatial distance and know when I'm supposed to be singing." A 1999 graduate of Florida State University, Kim earned a master's degree in voice performance from the University of Michigan. Between singing engagements she works as scheduling coordinator for the University of Michigan School of Music, where she studies with prominent soprano Shirley Verrett. While she still struggles with learning ("I have to sing or speak music out loud. I have to hear it or walk through it or have some kind of tactile way to learn," she says), Kim notes that public perception of dyslexia is starting to change. Research shows that those with the disability are generally average or above average in intelligence, and several famous dyslexics seem to bear it out. Among them: sculptor Auguste Rodin, Gen. George S. Patton, President Woodrow Wilson, actor Tom Cruise, investor and multimillionaire Charles Schwab and Texas Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan. "Because people are dyslexic doesn't make them dumb or illiterate or stupid," Kim said. "It does make their learning style a little different. It means they have to work a little harder at some things or look at something a little different." Tickets for "Opera in the Afternoon," which also features Ann Arbor baritone John Clayton Seesholtz and a silent auction, are $30 for adults, $20 for senior citizens and $10 for students. They are available at the Dennos Museum box office or at the Grand Traverse Dyslexia Association. For more information, call 929-1007.
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