By Alana Moehring Mallard
Girl Scout Troop 1997 of Rawson Saunders School in Tarrytown received a proclamation from City Council member Alison Alter last month, proclaiming October as Dyslexia Awareness Month. The proclamation, requested by the troop, is part of their work towards earning a Bronze Award.
The Bronze Award is the highest award a Junior Girl Scout can earn. It demonstrates a girl’s leadership skills and ability to collaborate with others to solve a community problem. To earn the Bronze Award, each girl is expected to spend a minimum of 20 hours on their project. “Our Girl Scout year starts Oct. 1,” said Ana Garcia, a co-leader of Troop 1997, “so Troop 1997 has just begun working on its project of Dyslexia Awareness.” Garcia’s Troop 1997 co-leader is Danielle Hasso.
As part of the Bronze Award, Rawson Saunders School Junior Girl Scouts also participated in a virtual 5K race, Dyslexia Dash, sponsored by a Georgia dyslexia awareness organization, and raised more than $1000 to support dyslexia literacy programs.
The girls also designed a patch for Dyslexia Awareness to wear on their uniform vests, and they will distribute 100 patches to local Girl Scouts who earn the patch by learning about dyslexia.
Rawson Saunders School on Exposition in Tarrytown is the only full-curriculum school in Central Texas for students with dyslexia. It was named a School of Distinction in 2022 for excellence in education. Laura Steinbach is Rawson Saunders head of school.
As much as 20 percent of the population is affected by dyslexia, a difficulty in decoding written language, says the proclamation, and many with dyslexia possess extraordinary strengths in creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, and innovation. Dyslexia awareness helps reduce the stigma often associated with dyslexia, promotes understanding of the particular challenges faced by people with dyslexia, and celebrates their achievements. Dyslexia Awareness Week in Austin ran from Oct. 1 through Oct. 31.
