OSHKOSH (NBC 26) — The Learning Collaborative is an Oshkosh non-profit that offers individual, specialized tutoring to children and adults with dyslexia. The goal is to make sure no one is held back by their learning disability.
- The Learning Collaborative was founded in February 2024 by Lea and Bill Kitz.
- The organization offers tutoring for those with dyslexia.
- The Learning Collaborative is raising money to hire another tutor.
Carla Marquardt says her daughter Leven has struggled in school for most of her life.
“Leven was a COVID kindergartner, so kind of started off a little behind after COVID,” she says. “Coming into fifth grade, we found out that she was pretty far behind where she needed to be for reading and math.”
Scrambling to help her daughter succeed, Carla turned to The Learning Collaborative.
“I hope with this intervention that it won’t put her too far behind when she gets to middle school,” she says.
The Learning Collaborative is a nonprofit organization in Oshkosh that offers specialized tutoring to children and adults with dyslexia or literacy difficulties.
“You know, everything having to do with reading in our lives that many people take for granted are a real struggle for some, and it can, in fact, impact your mental health, your self-esteem, but also your safety, your career choices, your life choices,” Lea Kitz, cofounder of the non-profit, says. "It impacts every area of a person's life."
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Lea and her husband, Dr. Bill Kitz, started The Learning Collaborative in February 2024 with help from the City of Oshkosh ARPA funding.
“I think this one is really just kind of a shining example of why we wanted to have ARPA dollars go to nonprofits and go to learning collaboratives like this,” Joe Stephenson, Oshkosh deputy mayor, says. "They're really going to give kids the tools to be the next generation of leaders to make Oshkosh thrive."
Bill has over 50 years of experience working with students with dyslexia.
He is the former director of Project Success at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, a program that provides support to students with dyslexia or other language-based learning disabilities.
“First thing is it’s nothing to do with intelligence,” Bill says. “It’s a difference in how you process language in the brain.”
Bill offers a specialized expertise, and he tutors his students individually.
“It's first teaching how to spell sounds as taking sounds and putting them together to make words, and it's a slow process,” he says. “Sometimes to spell out a word, doing it sound by sound by sound, takes time, but it's the kind of time that's needed.”
Dyslexia is a learning disability that impacts a person's ability to read or write. According to the International Dyslexia Association, 10-20% of people have dyslexia.
For parents, it’s a relief to find someone who can help their child.
Ashley Hesse’s 8-year-old daughter, Eden, has dyslexia. He’s also a board member for The Learning Collaborative.
“Just seeing her progress has been phenomenal over time, and I think for me, it really helped to just know that she's gotten the confidence and the desire to read and to take on that challenge, versus it being something that was sort of like such a barrier,” he says. “It's just really challenging. You want your child to do well, but they're struggling, and you can't help it. So as a parent, it's really an awful feeling.”
The Kitzs are the only tutors, and they volunteer their time.
Lea says they’re raising money to hire another staff member, so they can increase their capacity.
“Want to create a way that anyone who has these challenges to be able to move in any area of their lives,” Lea says.
Lea says a broader goal is to educate local teachers and organizations on how to properly help those with dyslexia.
“What we want to do is individual, make a difference for people individually, but we want to make also structural change.”
Despite a current waitlist, Lea encourages interested families to reach out to the Learning Collaborative with questions.
They need to raise $30,000 to fill the new tutoring position.
You can make a donation through their website.
