Dyslexia Awareness Month: What are libraries doing? Here’s a small sample

October is Dyslexia Awareness Month and as a librarian and the parent to a child with dyslexia, I’ve been really focusing on how school and public libraries can better serve patrons with dyslexia. You can find all of our posts at our Dyslexia Awareness dashboard. Today I thought I would take a look at what some libraries are doing during this month.

Although this blog is not related to the library that I work at, I do work at the Fort Worth Public Library where I select materials for youth and work with the other staff serving youth to provide quality services to the youth in our community. Towards the end of September I sent out an email to our youth services staff talking about dyslexia, my experiences as both a librarian and a parent, and I highlighted areas of our collections that would be particularly helpful to our youth patrons with dyslexia. I was very happy to see the other day that as I walked through my library a co-worker had read my e-mail and used the display area that she is responsible for to put up a Dyslexia Awareness Month display. I was also happy to see that several of the books had been checked out. Thank you Joanie Ramos for this great display and helping raise awareness!

I was also very happy to see on Facebook that the Teen @ Washington County Free Library had chosen to do a display as well. They have done a great job here of highlighting the various services they have for patrons with dyslexia.

On Twitter I follow librarian Jennifer Taggart and she also shared what her library is doing for Dyslexia Awareness Month.

A quick search of Twitter using the hasthag #Dyslexia and the keyword library revealed a few other libraries sharing their Dyslexia Awareness Month displays.

That same search revealed that some libraries were bringing in guest speakers, sharing films, and raising awareness in some other ways as well.

If you’re not sure what your library can do to help patrons with dyslexia, please check out the ALSC guidelines here. You can also find an informative article addressing this topic here. And finally, please check out the infographic I made here.

Thank you to all of the libraries who have made the choice to help us raise awareness during Dyslexia Awareness Month. Remember, 1 in 5 children will be identified as having dyslexia and it’s important if we want to raise readers that we know how we can best serve youth with dyslexia.

If your library provides special services, is doing a display, has special collections, or somehow does something to reach out to patrons with dyslexia, please leave a link in the comments for us to see what other libraries are doing.

Filed under: Dyslexia