For many families, the hardest part of a reading struggle is not finding out something is wrong. It is what comes after: a screening result, a waitlist, and a long drive to the nearest specialist. In Tylertown, Mississippi, two parents who lived that gap are closing it themselves. Shannia and Thomas Dozier open Dozier’s Academy of Dyslexia on August 6, a small school built around the structured, explicit reading instruction the science has favored for decades. The opening is worth celebrating, and the reason it has to exist is worth examining.
A new school for children with dyslexia opens August 6 in Tylertown, Mississippi, built by two parents who lived the gap between screening and help. Here is what their story means for families everywhere, and the questions to ask your own district.
Common questions
What is structured literacy, and how is it different from regular reading instruction?
A school screener flagged my child for dyslexia risk. What happens next?
Does Mississippi help pay for dyslexia schools?
Will my child learn to read as well as classmates who find it easy?
Mississippi screens every kindergartner for dyslexia. Reporting counts 57 dyslexia therapists in its public schools. So two Tylertown parents built their own school. That teaching belongs in every classroom.
Two parents, one new school
Dozier’s Academy of Dyslexia opens its doors in Tylertown on August 6 as an independently funded, non-public special purpose school serving kindergarten through 4th grade. Head of School Shannia Dozier and Dean of Students Thomas Dozier built it after watching their own children fight for reading help. “What inspired us to start this school is to have a place where students can thrive with dyslexia. We are parents of dyslexia students, and the vision really runs deep when it comes to that, because we just experienced first hand on how students with a disability can have challenges in the educational setting,” Shannia Dozier told WJTV.
The academy enrolls students with a primary diagnosis of dyslexia or characteristics consistent with it, and teaches through a structured pilot program of research-based instruction in small groups. After-school and summer sessions extend that support to students working on reading fluency, comprehension, written expression, and confidence. Enrollment is underway, and the long-term plan is to add one grade level each year and serve families across the region.
Thomas Dozier framed the stakes in bigger terms than one town: “The root issue of a lot of problems with our youth is literacy. Literacy impacts a lot of things. It impacts your economic. It also impacts self-esteem, dropout rates, things of that nature.”
What inspired us to start this school is to have a place where students can thrive with dyslexia. We are parents of dyslexia students, and the vision really runs deep when it comes to that, because we just experienced first hand on how students with a disability can have challenges in the educational setting.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
The state that proved the science still rations the teaching
Mississippi moved earlier than most states on reading science. Since a 2012 law, it has screened every child for signs of dyslexia between spring of kindergarten and fall of first grade, using state-approved screeners. It requires four hours of dyslexia awareness training for licensed educators every three years, and it runs the nation’s only school choice scholarship created specifically for students with dyslexia. On paper, a struggling reader in Mississippi is identified earlier than almost anywhere else in the country.
Then comes the after. Reporting by the Mississippi Free Press in 2025 counted five special purpose schools statewide approved to accept that scholarship, in Madison, Ridgeland, Petal, Hattiesburg, and Ocean Springs. The same reporting found 154 educators holding the state’s dyslexia endorsement and 57 dyslexia therapists working in public schools across Mississippi. Identification is mandatory and statewide. The instruction that identification points toward is scarce, clustered, and often a long drive away. That is the gap the Doziers are filling with a building in Walthall County.
Here is what the science says about that gap. Reading is not a natural skill the brain absorbs the way it absorbs speech. Stanislas Dehaene’s research shows reading repurposes brain circuits built for other jobs, and the National Reading Panel concluded back in 2000 that reading must be taught explicitly and systematically. Brain imaging studies at Yale and Stanford show that children who struggle with reading develop the same reading pathways as typical readers after intensive, appropriate instruction. Notice what none of that describes: a medical procedure. It describes teaching, delivered with skill and enough intensity to matter. A specialty school is one honest way to deliver the kind of instruction families keep driving hours to find. A classroom that teaches this way from the start is another, and that one scales to every child, including the ones a screener flags and a waitlist forgets.
Key takeaways
- A new option: Dozier’s Academy opens August 6 in Tylertown, teaching grades K-4 through structured literacy.
- The gap: Mississippi screens every kindergartner, yet reporting counts 57 dyslexia therapists in its public schools.
- The frame: Specialty schools deliver skilled teaching, not medicine, and skilled teaching belongs in every classroom.
What to do with a screening result, wherever you live
If a screener has flagged your child, in Mississippi or anywhere else, the result is a starting point and not a verdict. The first question belongs to the school: what changes in my child’s instruction on Monday? Ask which evidence-based reading program the school uses, whether instruction is explicit and systematic, and what specific training the reading teachers have in structured literacy. Those questions cost nothing, and the answers tell you quickly whether the default classroom is doing the teaching or outsourcing it.
Mississippi families have one more lever. The dyslexia therapy scholarship follows students in grades 1 through 12 to an approved nonpublic school or a neighboring public district, and it is worth up to the total state and local per-student funding amount, with parents covering any difference in tuition. It requires a formal dyslexia diagnosis and prior public school enrollment. That evaluation route is also the one to take if your child needs formal accommodations such as an IEP or 504 plan: a screener points you in a direction, and a professional evaluation opens those doors.
And if the nearest approved school is a county away, the work still starts at home. The International Dyslexia Association’s 2025 definition names environmental influences, including language and literacy support in the early years, as part of what shapes reading outcomes. That is official recognition of something the Doziers understood: parents are not spectators here. Daily practice that builds sound awareness, letter-sound mapping, and confidence moves a child forward while the system catches up. The Doziers plan to grow their academy one grade at a time. The finish line worth rooting for is the day schools like theirs are a choice, not a rescue.
The root issue of a lot of problems with our youth is literacy. Literacy impacts a lot of things. It impacts your economic. It also impacts self-esteem, dropout rates, things of that nature.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Two parents looked at a system that identifies struggling readers and then strands them, and they built the missing piece themselves. That is parent power, and it proves the point underneath every story we cover: children who struggle with reading are fully capable of learning, and the adults who love them are capable of moving first. The villain here is not any school or any state. It is the idea that evidence-based reading instruction is a specialty to be rationed instead of a default to be taught. You do not have to open a school to act on that. Learning Success All Access puts structured, science-backed skill building in your hands at home, starting today.
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Why we use AI, plainly: it writes from a knowledge base our team maintains and audits. We work through it line by line and pull anything the evidence stops supporting. The roadmap you get on Tuesday reflects what we corrected on Monday, and a human still reads it before you do.
Your school district must evaluate your child free of charge if you ask in writing, whatever your income and whatever the outcome (US, 34 CFR 300.111 and 300.301(b)). That route takes time and answers a different question than you do. This one starts today, from what you already know.
Your answers stay yours. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not hand identifiable assessment data to outside AI companies to train their models.
A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
References
- WJTV — New dyslexic specialty school opens in Tylertown
- Mississippi Free Press — Dyslexia Scholarship Helps Mississippi Families Access Therapy
- State of Dyslexia — Dyslexia Laws and Requirements in Mississippi
- EdChoice — Mississippi Dyslexia Therapy Scholarship Program
