Rachel Summer and Alissa Deitz are the Dyslexia Interventionists at Barton Hills Elementary. Ms. Summer is full-time and Ms. Deitz is half time on our campus. They both offer what we call "pull out" services, pulling small groups of students out of their classes to meet for prescriptive intervention. They strive to group the students according to where they are in terms of their skills, needs and grade level. They work with 1st through 5th grade students, in groups ranging from 1-6 kids.
There are a number of intervention programs that are run with these students, including Take Flight, Basic Language Skills, Rewards, and Reading by Design. These programs, while differing in their pace and level of difficulty, generally teach the same concepts. The goal of each program is to build stronger phonological awareness, word recognition, reading fluency and spelling. Other than Rewards, which is generally a one-year program, these programs can take anywhere from 2-4 years to complete.
Rachel Summer
Dyslexia Interventionist
rachel.summer@austinisd.org | 512-414-2013
Rachel is a proud public school mama, with a husband, two kids and two dogs at home. She attended college at Michigan State University before moving to Austin and finishing her Early Childhood education degree at Texas State. A decade of teaching Kindergarten and 1st grade spawned a love of small group reading instruction. This lead her to Rawson Saunders Institute, where she completed her national Certification in Academic Language Therapy to become a dyslexia interventionist. Rachel has been employed with AISD for 19 years, with the last 9 years at BHE. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, gardening, and traveling with her family.
Alissa Dietz
Dyslexia Interventionist
alissa.dietz@austinisd.org | 512-414-2013
Alissa lives in the neighborhood with her husband, 2 kids, 2 dogs and one cat. Both of her boys went to BHE and are now in middle and high school. She attended college at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and her 1st career was in local government. When Alissa moved to Austin, she decided to pursue teaching and worked as a dual language (English/Spanish) 1st grade teacher in East Austin. She then decided to pursue dyslexia intervention and took courses at the Rawson Saunders Institute for 3 years. She is a certified academic language therapist (CALT). Alissa has been teaching for 11 years and for the last four years has spent half her day at BHE and the other half at Zilker Elementary.