Lafayette Dyslexic Student Wins National Award

Learning Ally, a 68-year-old nonprofit, bestowed its highest award to Emily Daly of Lafayette, LA,. Emily was one of six students from across the U.S. who received cash awards and traveled to Learning Ally’s National Achievement Awards Gala celebration in Denver, Colorado last April.

Emily is profoundly dyslexic and dysgraphic, told as a child that she would never learn to read. During Emily's freshman year in high school, she turned to a classmate and asked, 'How do you spell the word, 'of'? Her classmate responded 'Oh my God, you’re so stupid. You must have gotten into your honors classes because they pitied you.

Against all odds, Emily is now a freshman at the University of Notre Dame and is deeply engaged in studying neuroscience. 'You must refuse to let people label you, because it destroys the greatness that lives inside each of us,' Emily says.

The winner of numerous school and literary awards, Emily has helped her teachers realize that students with learning differences can not only learn, but achieve heights of academic and personal excellence. 'It’s truly beautiful what I believe the dyslexic mind can do,' Emily says. 'With the help of Learning Ally, I have learned to turn my disability into strength.'