Naomi Peña didn’t mean to become an activist for kids with learning disabilities, but when she realized that her son was struggling to learn to read in school, she knew that something had to be done.
Naomi is a lifelong New Yorker as well as a supporter of the New York public school system. So when her son, Jonah, began getting in trouble at school almost two decades ago, she was confused and concerned. She knew he was a kid who didn’t like to get in trouble, so why was he acting out during reading lessons?
When she asked him what exactly was going on, he told her, “Mom, I don’t know what it is. It’s like my brain won’t let me.” Gutted, Naomi decided to have her son evaluated for learning disabilities and ultimately discovered that he was dyslexic.
According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), dyslexia is a neurological learning disability characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. Kids with dyslexia require special teaching adaptations and adjustments to learn to read and write. One in five kids have some form of dyslexia.
However, Naomi quickly discovered that the teachers at her son’s school didn’t have the proper training and her public school lacked the funding to train already overburdened teachers in the specialized type of teaching needed to help her son. As a believer in the public school system and its possibilities Naomi began looking for solutions to help not only her kids, but other kids with dyslexia and other reading difficulties.
She discovered that the only resources available to help children with dyslexia were expensive tutoring or even more expensive private schools. Naomi eventually found other parents who were struggling to help their kids learn to read, and together they founded the Literacy Academy Collective (LAC), a nonprofit organization aimed at building and supporting a network of specialty New York public schools to allow struggling readers achieve academic success.
In 2023, the Literacy Academy Collection opened a first-of-its-kind public school, the South Bronx Literacy Academy, in the New York City public school system, dedicated to serving children with dyslexia or other language-based learning disabilities. This year they successfully opened their permanent campus in the Bronx. The teachers are all trained in structured literacy teaching techniques, specifically to teach kids with dyslexia conducted by Literacy Academy Collective during their annual Summer Practicum.
Naomi has heard from both students and their parents that the differences seen in the kids at the school have been life altering. “I have one mom who said that their therapist is asking what we’re doing at [South Bronx Literacy Academy] because he’s a different boy, he’s a different boy. He was so angry that he couldn’t read. But now he’s doing amazing,” she said.
But Naomi and LAC aren’t stopping at just one school. Naomi’s goal is to open up a school in every borough of New York City. In fact, they are already preparing to open a second school in Brooklyn called the Central Brooklyn Literacy Academy.
Naomi’s advice if your kid is struggling to read? “Never take no for an answer when you’re advocating for your child.”
To hear more about Naomi and her work, check out her episode of our podcast, Power to the Parents!
