May Hopkins California

Marion Huber Learning Through Listening Winners

May Hopkins

May Hopkins is currently a nursing student enrolled at Western Reserve University. She says, “Learning Ally helped me succeed in early childhood and throughout school. As my reading assignments got more complicated, I really struggled. My parents started to become worried. They found a testing center. In sixth grade, I was officially diagnosed with dyslexia. Something in my brain was working against me. With audiobooks, I could comprehend text much easier. I learned that I read better auditorily than visually. Before Learning Ally, my mom would search and search at libraries for books that I needed in these CD booklets. We would have to download each CD individually onto the computer and then download that onto my iPod. It was time consuming. If the library didn't have the CD, my mom would end up reading it to me. Finding Learning Ally, we did lots of title searches easily throughout the website. Many of the books I needed over the years were there. It was exciting for me. It made my mom’s life easier. My confidence was better and I knew that I could now “read to learn.” Finding textbooks and literature I needed for school was fast and efficient. I never would have found many of the books I needed on CDs. I gained so much independence. I could find and download the audiobooks myself. Learning differences can be confusing. I do not fully understand mine and why my brain does not decode words fast enough to comprehend what I read. Learning Ally has really helped me cope with this learning challenge and given me the ability to find the books I need to succeed.