When Awareness Becomes Action: Changing Outcomes for Students with Dyslexia

Voyager Sopris Learning’s Dyslexia Awareness Week concludes with an inspiring and action-focused session led by Clarice L. Jackson, nationally recognized literacy and dyslexia advocate, educator, consultant, author, and longtime champion for struggling readers and their families.

For nearly three decades, Clarice has worked alongside students, families, educators, policymakers, and communities around one central question: Once we know a child is struggling to read, what are we going to do about it?

Building on the foundational knowledge shared throughout Dyslexia Awareness Week, Clarice will challenge educators to move beyond awareness and into action. Understanding dyslexia matters, but awareness alone does not change a child’s reading trajectory. What changes outcomes is what happens next: early identification, evidence-aligned instruction, effective intervention across all tiers of support, progress monitoring, knowledgeable educators, engaged families, and systems prepared to respond when students struggle.

Drawing from her work as Founder and Executive Director of the Voice Advocacy Center, Founder and President of Decoding Dyslexia Nebraska, President of The Reading League Nebraska, and Convener and Host of the Black Literacy Matters^® National Conference, Clarice will explore how instruction, intervention, policy, and family-school partnerships intersect to shape outcomes for students with dyslexia.

Clarice will also draw from her published Reconstruction Literacy Paradox framework and her scholarship, Literacy as Exodus: The Reconstruction Literacy Paradox and the Collapse of Educational Will, published in The Midwest Quarterly. Her work raises an important question for education today: If we know more about how children learn to read than ever before, do we have the educational will to ensure that every child receives the instruction and intervention they need?

Through powerful experiences from students and families, Clarice will demonstrate what can happen when struggling readers are seen, families are heard, and educators have the knowledge and tools to act.

Her message is simple and urgent: Awareness is the beginning. Action is what changes lives. When what we know becomes what we do, we can change not only how a child reads, but the trajectory of that child’s education and future.

What You’ll Learn

• How to move from dyslexia awareness to meaningful action in classrooms and schools
• Why effective intervention across all tiers of support matters for students with dyslexia
• How early identification, evidence-aligned instruction, intervention, and progress monitoring work together
• How educators and families can become effective partners in supporting student success
• How systems and policies shape access to identification, instruction, and intervention
• Which instructional practices make the greatest difference for struggling readers
• Why timely, evidence-based intervention can change a student’s educational trajectory
• How educators can turn what they know about dyslexia into what they do for students