The Dyslexia Foundation is proud to announce that Ms. Yvette Blaess, who formerly served as Miss Virginia Beach 2015, will serve as ambassador and spokesperson for The Dyslexia Foundation. She will be competing in the 2016 Miss America World Pageant, “Beauty with a Purpose“. Ms. Blaess has a very heartfelt and personal purpose – to help children and adolescents who have dyslexia. Ms. Blaess has dyslexia and struggled throughout her school years because reading was so difficult for her. In fact, she didn’t truly learn how to read until four years ago, as a young adult. Ms. Blaess has selected Dyslexia Awareness as her platform and will be competing to be your next Miss World America 2016. She has partnered with The Dyslexia Foundation to increase awareness, education and research related to dyslexia, and this partnership will serve as her “Beauty with a Purpose” platform.
Ms. Blaess is passionate about helping youth who have dyslexia, not only because school is difficult for them, but because children who struggle with reading are often teased and bullied by their peers, just as she was bullied. She believes that a very important way to help students who have dyslexia is to help teachers understand this brain-based learning difference that affects the ability to sound out words. When individuals struggle with reading individual words, they struggle with the ability to read sentences and text easily. People who struggle with reading in this way often struggle with reading comprehension because it takes so much effort to figure out the words on the page. Dyslexia is not seeing letters and words backwards – it is the reduced ability to perceive sounds in words and/or match the sounds with the letter(s), then sequence the letter sounds to form a word. It’s important for educators to understand the symptoms of dyslexia. She wants teachers to understand that children who have dyslexia are not limited intellectually; they just struggle with reading, spelling, and writing. Ms Blaess wants to help educators understand how to best teach students with dyslexia, and that students who have dyslexia need a systematic, multi-sensory, phonics approach to instruction. She also wants educators to have access to the scientific evidence that supports this methodology. Her work with the Foundation will be focused on these goals.
Ms. Blaess will be raising funds for The Dyslexia Foundation as part of the pageant competition. Please take a moment to make a donation to this worthy cause.
You can also follow Yvette’s and her journey on social media
The Dyslexia Foundation (501(c)(3)) was established in 1989 by Mr. William Baker. The Foundation’s mission is to identify and assist children with dyslexia to establish a higher level of learning. This is accomplished through the promotion of scientific breakthroughs in the early detection, prevention, and remediation of dyslexia and related reading difficulties, with a goal to prevent the suffering caused by reading failure and to unlock the full potential of children and adults with dyslexia so that they may personally succeed and contribute to society.