Bodine School is celebrating its 50th anniversary looking beyond its Germantown campus into ways it can help the greater Memphis community.
On Friday, community members visited the school and received tours from students. Notable leaders like Germantown Mayor Mike Palazzolo, Alderwoman Sherrie Hicks, U.S. Congressman David Kustoff, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, and General Sessions Court Judge Ron Lucchesi were among those present for a morning of celebrations.
Bodine opened in 1972 at Frayser Presbyterian Church with a mission to help students struggling to read. The school opened in memory of Richard and Virginia Bodine’s son, Rick, who had reading issues. No school locally provided the help he needed, so he was sent to a school in Florida. He died in an accidental drowning while away from his family.
“From that tragedy, they decided that no other family in Memphis should need to send their child away for the services that they needed,” Gretchen Klobucar, Bodine’s director of institutional advancement, said.
The school, which serves students diagnosed with dyslexia, spent some time at Kingsway Christian Church, but moved to its current home in 1979. The Bodines owned land on Yester Oaks Drive south of Dogwood Road and opened the school on the site. The area was mostly undeveloped but during the last four decades, the Dogwood Creek North neighborhood developed around Bodine. The school remains there tucked away, its campus surrounded by large trees.
When the original Bodine opened in 1972, there were two students. This year, the school serves 99 students with dyslexia in grades 1-6. In the fall of 2024, Bodine will transition to serving grades 1-5. Klobucar said the impending move is due to research showing improved results with earlier intervention.
While every student at Bodine has a diagnosis of dyslexia, some may have other diagnoses like ADHD, autism or auditory processing disorders.
“Their main roadblock in the classroom is dyslexia,” Klobucar said. “Some of them come to us completely illiterate. Some of our first graders don’t know their ABCs. Some of our second graders don’t know how to write their name. Kids who have been beaten down from this yardstick of literacy they’ve been measured up against their who lives, up to that point, and their confidence is shot.”
Within a few months, parents realize their students are finally happy in school. Bodine’s classroom instruction is based on the Orton-Gillingham method, a structured, multi-sensory program helping students learn to connect letters and sounds and build those skills over time. Posters around the school help students decode words and read.
Students often come from the lower 5-10% on most standardized test scores and then rise to 50% or better.
“That doesn’t sound like a great statistic, but what you can do at 50% or above reading level or average assessment is you can actually access what you are reading and answer comprehension questions,” Klobucar said. “Dyslexia is something that cannot be cured. It’s something that (students) will likely carry with them their whole lives, and most of them do not become excellent spellers. They struggle with that, and they never become fast readers usually. But they become confident, and they are interested in texts.”
Instruction for reading, spelling and math happens during the prime morning hours. Some students struggle with dysgraphia, dyscalculia and dyspraxia, which impacts math.
Read more: https://dailymemphian.com/section/metro/article/31804/bodine-school-50-years-of-helping-students-reading-dyslexia