Pamela Taylor, MS, EdPsych, CDP
Educational Therapist
Certified Dyslexia Practitioner
Orton-Gillingham Certified Teacher
Master Level Certified Barton Reading and Spelling Tutor
Dyslexia Assessor and Psychometrician
MS EdPsych
Want to know how LexiaHeroes came to be?
Grab a cup of coffee and read or listen here:
Pamela Taylor is the creator of LexiaHeroes and founder of the LexiAbility dyslexia center.
In 1998, Taylor transitioned from working with adult Learners in the corporate world to coaching gifted math students.
In working with an exceptionally brilliant young man who had been struggling unexpectedly in school, she consulted with the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity. He was tested and diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia and received recommendations for research-based reading instruction; however, Taylor, his parents, and the school were unable to find an available specialist. Recognizing the need and wanting to help the young man, Taylor studied the science of reading, learning, and dyslexia and began using the Barton Reading and Spelling System, an Orton-Gillingham-based approach.
She became a Masters Certified Barton Tutor, certified Orton-Gillingham teacher, and Certified Dyslexia Practitioner. She was elected president of the local International Dyslexia Association branch and at an international conference, she met mentor Diana King, a seminal leader in the field. King encouraged her to focus on creating a meaningful “legacy” by opening a clinic and training others.
In 2011, Taylor opened LexiAbility, a dyslexia center, with a talented group of remediation therapists. Taylor began training psychologists, doctors, reading specialists, speech language pathologists, and special education teachers in dyslexia identification and remediation.
She spoke at conferences, facilitated workshops, consulted with private and public school districts, and appeared on educational radio and television programs.
LexiAbility worked with a special family in the US Army and received approval as its first vendor for dyslexia remediation training.
In 2016, Taylor approached her mentor, Susan Barton, with ideas for a unique Orton-Gillingham website. Barton provided thoughtful considerations, helpful guidance, and kind encouragement for Taylor to develop her own program.
Later that year, the State of California and Barton referred a profoundly dyslexic and completely illiterate high school student, who had not responded to school services or specialized tutoring. The severity of the student’s challenges and his extremely remote location up in the mountains required ingenuity. The services had to be delivered online, even though, at the time, online services were thought of as inferior.
Through research, Taylor became convinced that online instruction was not the issue. Instead, it was that written, in-person programs were adapted inadequately to meet the unique and additional needs of online learning. Inspired by Barton’s belief in parents as instructors, and King’s call for “legacy” thinking, Taylor explored how her own work with this one student could lead to creating an online program to further the field.
She decided to write a program specifically for online instruction, using the science and best practices of dyslexia remediation and learning through technology. She saw how this could help with the ever-increasing needs for accessibility and affordability. It was also an opportunity to overcome limitations of printed programs.
With a digital format, a program could be delivered more incrementally, offer flexibility in presentation and practice, provide full audio and video support, contain unlimited practice material, and establish research data.
She created the first lesson that informed LexiaHeroes and tried them with the California student. His progress exceeded expectations and Taylor’s contract was renewed. She continued developing the online program.
In 2017, remediation specialists began using the newly created LexiaHeroes. Susan Barton began referring students who had more challenges and they were responsive to the LexiaHeroes format.
She shared her experiences with a French colleague at a dyslexia conference, and was invited to Paris to research and study a government-approved, successful phonemic awareness program. Taylor decided to incorporate some of the research-based principles used in France, but not common in the US, as she believed they would also greatly benefit English Learners.
In 2019, the online lessons of LexiaHeroes were finished and published online for remediation therapists.
In 2020, a second version of LexiaHeroes was completed and a select group of parents were given access to the online program for feedback. Some parents reported that with the digital format, fully supported by audio and video, and systematic procedures, they could facilitate the program even when they had poor literacy skills.
Between the remediation specialists and parents, the feedback regarding LexiaHeroes’ effectiveness was validating, and the effort to upscale LexiaHeroes for public access was fully underway.
In 2022, Taylor received two funding gifts to migrate LexiaHeroes to a customized, interactive platform for parent subscribers. With the talents of North UX website developers and the entire LexiAbility team, the first stage of the website was built specifically for parent users. On November 10, 2023, Taylor invited a select group of Founding Heroes to form the first cohort on the new site.
Taylor and her team will continue to guide LexiaHeroes’ development. Plans include automated assessment and review, gamification, scope and sequence flexibility, learner customization, and robust tracking of data for research and improvements.