By Lyn Haselmann  ·  The 20 Percent Club  ·  5 min read

Does your student freeze in front of a blank page? Do they know what they want to say but have no idea how to get it down? Our 7-week online Structure & Style writing program gives students a clear, step-by-step framework for writing — and the confidence to use it in every class for the rest of their life.

This summer, The 20 Percent Club is offering a condensed version of the acclaimed Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) Structure & Style program — taught live on Zoom by Kea Knox, a fully accredited IEW teacher. The program is specifically designed for students who struggle with writing, including those with dyslexia, and for homeschool families looking for a structured, expert-led summer option.

Why Structure & Style works — especially for struggling writers

One of the most common challenges we see at The 20% Club is students who can speak brilliantly but fall apart the moment they have to write. This is especially common for students with dyslexia, where the demands of spelling and organizing thoughts simultaneously can be overwhelming.

The IEW Structure & Style method solves this by breaking writing down into clear, repeatable steps. Students learn to organize their ideas first, then develop their style so they always know what to do next. The skills are not just for summer. They transfer directly to school essays, book reports, and eventually college applications.

What parents say about IEW: “One of my sons used to hate writing. After IEW, he now says writing is actually enjoyable for him.” Parents consistently report that even the most reluctant writers gain genuine confidence through this structured, checklist-based approach.

What your student will learn: 6 structural models

Over the course of seven weeks, students move progressively from basic note-taking all the way to formal essays and critiques — the same skills required in middle school, high school, and beyond.

1. Note-taking and outlining
2. Writing from notes
3. Summarizing a single reference
4. Summarizing multiple references
5. Formal essays
6. Formal critiques

Students will work outside of class between sessions to complete assignments. There are no traditional grades.

Program details at a glance

Dates-June 16 – August 4, 2025
Day & Time-Tuesdays, 1:00–2:30 PM
Format-Live on Zoom (sessions recorded)
Teacher-Kea Knox — accredited IEW teacher
Tuition-$390 + $60 materials fee
What’s included– Structure & Style binder, All source texts

Tuition is billed through TutorBird. Missed sessions? No problem — all lessons are recorded and stored in Google Drive so students never fall behind.

May Special — Save $40 when you enroll by May 15

Enroll before May 15 and pay just $350 (regularly $390). That’s $40 back in your pocket before summer even starts.

Referral bonus: Know another family who would love this? Share the program and earn a $25 credit for every student who enrolls through your referral. No limit.

Enroll Now — Spots Are Limited ↗

Technical requirements

This is a live, interactive online class. To get the most out of every session, students will need:

• Reliable Wi-Fi or wired internet connection
• A computer, Chromebook, or iPad with a working webcam
• A headset with microphone
• A quiet, distraction-free workspace for the full 90 minutes
• A pen (pencil is not permitted)
• All materials are provided — no additional purchases needed

Is this program right for my student?

This program is a great fit if your student:

• Struggles to organize their thoughts on paper
• Has dyslexia or a reading/writing difference
• Is a reluctant writer who needs structure and clear expectations
• Is a homeschool student looking for a guided summer writing class
• Needs writing skills that will transfer directly to school assignments

Not sure if it’s the right fit? Email us at evelyn@the20percentclub.com and we’ll help you decide.

Reserve Your Student’s Spot ↗

📚 Join Us for Literacy Day at the Capitol!  🗓 Tuesday, April 21  📍 Minnesota State Capitol Rotunda

Minnesota Literacy Day at the Capitol 2026: Why We Show Up Every Year

By Lyn Haselmann  ·  April 14, 2026  ·  5 min read

We are gathering once again to lift up student voices, celebrate literacy, and advocate for the support all Minnesota learners deserve. On Tuesday, April 21, 2026, The 20 Percent Club will be at the Minnesota State Capitol for Minnesota Literacy Day, and we want you there too.

Every April, families, educators, students, and advocates descend on the Capitol Rotunda in St. Paul for one of the most powerful days in Minnesota literacy advocacy. This year’s event, organized by Decoding Dyslexia Minnesota, kicks off at 9:45 a.m. and continues a decade-long tradition of making student voices impossible to ignore.

At The 20% Club, we have been part of this movement from the beginning, because the children we teach every day deserve more than we are currently giving them as a state. Here is why this day matters, what is on the agenda, and how you can be part of it.

What is Minnesota Literacy Day at the Capitol?

Minnesota Literacy Day is an annual advocacy event co-hosted by Decoding Dyslexia Minnesota and Great MN Schools. It brings together parents, students, teachers, community leaders, and legislators to celebrate progress on literacy and to keep the pressure on for what still needs to be done.

In 2023, this community helped push The READ Act across the finish line a historic $90 million investment in science-of-reading aligned instruction, professional development, and literacy coaching for every Minnesota school district. That bill did not pass on its own. It passed because hundreds of people showed up, year after year, until lawmakers understood the urgency.

Why it matters: Only about half of Minnesota’s public school students currently read at or above grade level. For students with dyslexia (roughly 1 in 5) the gap is even wider. Showing up at the Capitol is one of the most direct things any of us can do to change that.

What we are advocating for in 2026

The READ Act was a landmark win, but the work is not finished. This year, Decoding Dyslexia Minnesota is rallying support for SF1842 and HF60 — bills that would require teachers to receive two hours of professional development on dyslexia as part of their licensure requirements.

Two hours. That is all we are asking. And yet most Minnesota teachers graduate without ever learning what dyslexia is, how to identify it, or how structured literacy can help. Our students cannot wait for that to change on its own.

Why The 20% Club shows up

Our name comes from a hard statistic: approximately 20 percent of all students have dyslexia or a related reading difference. These are not students who are not trying. They are students whose schools were not trained to teach them.

Every child we work with at our White Bear Lake tutoring center is proof of what is possible when students get the right instruction Orton-Gillingham based, systematic, explicit, and delivered by someone who understands how their brain works. Dyslexia advocacy and dyslexia tutoring go hand in hand. We cannot do one without the other.

How to join us on April 21

• Attend in person — Minnesota State Capitol, St. Paul. Gathering begins at 9:45 a.m. Bring your student if you can. Student voices are the most powerful thing in that rotunda.
• Contact your legislators — Visit decodingdyslexiamn.org for a script and your representatives’ contact info. A two-minute call or email makes a real difference.
• Share this post — Every parent who sees this and shows up is one more voice for Minnesota’s struggling readers.

Not sure if you should come? Think about the child in your life who is working twice as hard as everyone else just to keep up. Think about what it would mean for them to know that adults — their parents, their tutors, their community — went to the Capitol and said their name. That is why we go.

We hope to see you there. Until all can read — Lyn Haselmann, The 20 Percent Club

About Decoding Dyslexia Minnesota

Decoding Dyslexia Minnesota is a grassroots nonprofit that educates, advocates, and empowers families and educators across Minnesota. They have been a leading force behind every major dyslexia policy win in the state, including the universal definition of dyslexia in state statute and the 2023 READ Act. Learn more at decodingdyslexiamn.org.

Why Audiobooks Are Essential for Students with Dyslexia
By Evelyn Haselmann • The 20 Percent Club

If your child has dyslexia, you have probably watched them struggle through a reading assignment with a sinking feeling in your stomach. You have seen the frustration. The avoidance. The quiet belief they are forming about themselves: that they are not a reader.

I want to offer you something today that changes that story completely.

It is called ear reading, and it is one of the most powerful tools available to a dyslexic learner.

What Is Ear Reading?

Reading is not an activity that happens in your eyes. It is an activity that happens in your brain.

When information enters through your eyes, your ears, or your fingertips (as with Braille), it all travels to the same destination: the language centers of your brain, where it is processed for meaning, stored as vocabulary, and connected to everything else you know.

Eye reading, Braille reading, and ear reading are three different roads to the same place.

This is not a theory. Brain imaging research has confirmed it: listening to a book activates the same neural pathways as reading that book with your eyes. The comprehension is real. The vocabulary growth is real. The story is just as real.

For a student with dyslexia, ear reading is not a lesser version of reading. It is reading, delivered through a channel that works.

Why Dyslexic Students Need Ear Reading

Dyslexia is a neurological difference that affects the ability to decode written words. It has nothing to do with intelligence — and everything to do with how a student’s brain processes the sounds within language.

When a dyslexic student struggles to decode words, all of their mental energy goes to sounding out (or decoding the words). Not to understanding. Not to enjoying. Just decoding.

Audiobooks remove that barrier entirely. They let the content in. A child who is ear reading:

• Builds vocabulary at the same rate as grade-level peers
• Develops comprehension and critical thinking from complex texts
• Stays current in content knowledge across subjects
• Experiences the joy of story, the foundation of a lifelong love of reading

At The 20% Club, we use the Orton-Gillingham approach and the Barton Reading and Spelling System to teach students how to decode. That work is crucial. But while a student is learning to decode, they cannot afford to fall behind in everything else. Ear reading bridges that gap.

The Best Audiobook Platforms for Students with Dyslexia

Here are the tools I recommend to every family, starting with the most specialized.

1. Learning Ally — Best for Dyslexic Students

Cost: ~35/year  •  Requires disability documentation  •  Dyslexia qualifies

Learning Ally is the gold standard for students with print disabilities. Originally called Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, this nonprofit has been serving students for decades. Their library includes more than 80,000 human-narrated titles, real voices, not robots, covering K–12 textbooks, classic literature, and popular books.

What makes Learning Ally uniquely powerful is synchronized text highlighting: as the narrator reads, the words highlight in real time. This connects the sound of language to its written form — exactly what structured literacy teaches.

Because Learning Ally operates under federal copyright rules, you will need documentation of your child’s print disability. A dyslexia diagnosis qualifies. The process is straightforward.

★ I can provide families with a referral discount for Learning Ally. Contact me through The 20 Percent Club website to get started.

2. Libby — Best Free Option for Current Titles

Cost: FREE with a public library card

Libby connects to your public library’s digital collection. With a library card, you can borrow audiobooks, ebooks, and magazines for free. Used by more than 90% of North American public libraries.

Libby’s strengths: large curated selection including new releases, Kindle integration, a dyslexia-friendly font option, adjustable playback speed, automatic returns, and a clean interface. The main limitation: popular titles have waitlists. But there is always something available, and libraries often honor title requests.

Start here. It costs nothing and takes two minutes to set up.

3. Hoopla — Best for Instant Access

Cost: FREE with a public library card  •  8–10 items per month

Hoopla operates differently from Libby, no waitlists, ever. If a title is in the collection (500,000+ items), you borrow it immediately. This makes Hoopla ideal for when your student wants to start a book right now.

Use Libby and Hoopla together. When Libby has a long wait, check Hoopla. Between the two, your student will never be without a book.

4. Everand — Best Paid Subscription Option

Cost: ~11.99/month (formerly Scribd)

Everand is a subscription service offering audiobooks, ebooks, and magazines for a flat monthly fee. A good option for families who want broader access than the library apps provide. Note: as of 2025, Everand has introduced a credit system for some premium titles, so the catalog is not entirely unlimited.

How to Start Today

• Get your library card out (or get one (free)
• Download Libby and Hoopla (both free) on iOS and Android
• Let your child choose something they are genuinely curious about — and let them listen

Then let them listen. In the car. Before bed. During a long drive. Ear reading happens everywhere.

A Note to Parents

I know it can feel like giving your child an audiobook is “not really reading.” We hear this from families all the time.

Hear this clearly: it is reading. The research supports it. The educators who specialize in dyslexia support it. And the children who discover they can finish a book, who come home excited about the story, who ask for the next one in the series, they know it is reading.

Ear reading does not replace the work of learning to decode. At The 20% Club, we do that work every single session. But it runs alongside that work, making sure your child stays connected to the world of ideas and stories while their decoding skills are catching up.

Both matter. Both belong.

Evelyn Haselmann is the founder of The 20% Club, a dyslexia tutoring center specializing in the Orton-Gillingham approach and the Barton Reading and Spelling System. Her team works with students in the Twin Cities, Minnesota and remotely across the world. Learn more at The20PercentClub.com.

“I keep getting my numbers wrong.”

That’s what my son Henry scrawled across his “I Have a Dream” poster in 2nd grade. While his classmates imagined Stanley Cup victories and future veterinary clinics, Henry’s dream was simply not to get math wrong. As a mom, it broke my heart—and if I’m honest, I didn’t know what to do. I’d learned all about dyslexia, but I had never heard of dyscalculia. The idea that one of my kids might have another “dys” was overwhelming.

Like many parents, I turned to private tutors. Henry sat through countless worksheets and re‑taught lessons. He could mimic the steps well enough to pass a test, but he never understood math in a deep, meaningful way. He kept working with tutors throughout college.

Those experiences planted a seed. I wanted The 20% Club(TM) to offer math remediation—something beyond a review of the day’s lesson. I wanted a program that made math real and tangible, especially for kids like Henry.

Enter Ms. Joan. After 25 years in the classroom and extensive Orton‑Gillingham training, she reached out about tutoring with us. During our conversation, she asked, “Have you ever considered math?” That was the start of a months‑long search.

We spoke with educators across the country, tested curricula, and watched demos. We were looking for a program that would engage students virtually but still allow them to work with real objects,not just screens.

We found it right here in the Upper Midwest: RightStart™ Math. Created by Dr. Joan A. Cotter, a former Montessori teacher with a doctorate in math education, this curriculum uses manipulatives in every lesson so children see how numbers work. Instead of endless worksheets, students practice through verbal responses and math card games. They learn strategies that build number sense rather than rote memorization, and lessons are short and build step‑by‑step. The program’s two‑sided Cotter Abacus and place‑value cards bring numbers to life, making math both kinesthetic and visual.

What makes it even more exciting for our families is that this approach works beautifully online. Every student receives the same manipulatives our tutors use, so even in a virtual session, everyone’s hands are on the same tools. Parents can peek in and see their child’s progress, and there’s no commuting or weather cancellations.

If your child has ever said, “I keep getting my numbers wrong,” there is hope. Our new 50‑minute sessions, offered at least twice per week, are designed to build confidence that lasts long after the next test.

Ready for remediation that sticks? Email evelyn@the20percentclub.com or call 651‑245‑2858 to schedule a free assessment.

August 2016 Newsletter

October 2016 Newsletter

Mom:  “Do you have any homework?” Kiddo: “Nope, I did it in class.”

Back to school often means back to homework battles.  Some parents know all-to-well what I mean when I say “battle” and what we really mean is “war.”  A war between you and your kiddo that is not productive, doesn’t feel good and sometimes leaves everyone in tears including the siblings that aren’t even involved.  If you’re reading this post, you know I’m not exaggerating.  Homework is often the “last straw” after an exhausting day for students.  So, let’s simplify.  We’ll start with the gear.  Remember, it’s never too late to switch things up.  It’s never too late to implement new strategies that help us all work smarter, not harder.  These tips are for students Middle to High School but are easily adaptable for the Elementary Student.

1. The backpack.

 
2.  Put together a simple notebook/binder.  Everything should be in 1 place and color coded.  We buy simple, inexpensive backpacks but upgrade on the school supplies.

 
3. This is what one of ours looks like.  Blue is for History/Geography or Social Studies type of course for us.

 
4.  Other things that keep us in business during the school year.  Essentials for us are Flash Drives with Monkey Tails, Post-it Flags, Ticonderoga Pencils and 2 lined paper (Handwriting Without Tears(tm).  More about the 2-lined paper- I like the notebook paper because it’s a strategy that works and my son will use without feeling like he’s needing an accommodation.  They make other notebooks and journals but, they don’t “look” the same as “regular” notebooks.  I also like everything in one place, and a separate notebook is well, separate and highly likely to be left in the locker.  The paper is pricey and only available on the website as far as I can tell.  I paid $30 for 1,000 sheets of the narrow version.  But, in the scheme of things, if I invest $30 and his writing is better, then, it works. IMHO  The paper is available in narrow, regular (college rule) and wide.