Learning to learn

As a child, Jason Marlow learned to cope with dyslexia. Now he volunteers for a group that helps others do the same.

member spotlight

Jason Marlow, CPA
Supervisor, Ellin & Tucker, Chartered

By Bill Sheridan
Statement editor

Jason Marlow was 9 when he found out he was dyslexic. Then came the real shocker: He found out his father was, too.

In school, Jason was a bright kid who did well in most subjects but one reading. As a fourth-grader, he was reading at a second-grade level. His mother suspected something was wrong and had him tested. The diagnosis was dyslexia, a disability in which a person struggles to read because he or she cannot learn and remember whole words by sight.

Jason's plight struck a chord with his father, Robert. Though he had forged a successful career in a labor union, Robert Marlow had spent his life dealing with the same educational issues that Jason was facing. He, too, realized he was dyslexic.

His father's dyslexia — not his own — is why Jason today spends much of his volunteer efforts with the Dyslexia Tutoring Program.

Giving back

Founded in 1982, the Baltimore-based organization offers support to low-income children and adults who are dyslexic or have a language-based learning disability. It screens potential students and matches them with volunteer tutors who are trained in a multisensory approach to reading, writing and spelling.

Marlow, now 35, has been a volunteer on the organization's development and finance committees for nearly two years. (A fellow MACPA member — Howard Rosen, managing partner at Rosen, Sapperstein and Friedlander — is the organization's treasurer.)

"It goes back to my father," said Marlow. "He didn't know he was dyslexic and had to struggle with it throughout his entire life. What (the Dyslexia Tutoring Program) does is very similar to what my parents did for me. My father didn't have the opportunity to experience that."

For Marlow, that experience made all the difference while he was in school. Thanks to his mother's persistence, he received an individual education plan (IEP) that was developed especially for him by Baltimore County. Among the plan's features:

His parents were given his curriculum in advance, so they could help him at home.
Instructions could be read to him if needed.
He was given extra time to complete written exams.

"As a fifth- or sixth-grader, I might test at a second-grade level in a timed written exam," Marlow said. "When I was allowed to take it untimed, I was almost back up to par."

One-on-one learning

That kind of individual attention is a key part of the Dyslexia Tutoring Program. Students receive one-on-one tutoring from trained volunteers, and parents learn how they can better support their dyslexic children at home.

The success rate is impressive. More than 700 people receive help from the organization each year, and several have gone on to take college-level courses.

Marlow went one step further: With the instruction he received from his IEP, he not only completed college but passed the rigorous CPA exam as well.

"Dyslexia is not something you ever overcome," he said, "but you can learn different ways to find the answers you need."

Supporting a group that provides that kind of help — help that he received and his father did not — has become an important part of his life.

"With a little bit of time or money, you can contribute to somebody else's success, and that's really rewarding," he said. "From my experience, I know the help they receive (from the Dyslexia Tutoring Program) is invaluable in terms of their development — and their lives."

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