Reading is a staple to life, but some kids with dyslexia struggle every day to read. According to the Children’s Dyslexia Center of Central New York, one in five kids are dyslexic.

Dante is one of 17 students that comes to the Children's Dyslexia Center each week. They use different tools and toys for students grades 1-12 to learn how to read. And families of people like Dante don't have to pay anything to get these tutoring services.

“They would have trouble decoding, trouble spelling, trouble writing. It ends up affecting all things in school,” said Marianne Jones, a tutor with the program. “You're always going back and touching on those things, so that they become automatic to the students.”

Tutors there don’t have to pay any extra money to get enough training to be able to help students.

“Some of the kids come here after having it so hard all day in school and not being able to read and decode and comprehend, and then we work for another hour, so they work really, really hard,” said Jones.

The money needed to run the program comes mostly from donations and fundraisers. Linda Martin is the Director of the Children's Dyslexia Center of Central New York, and she knows what the kids they tutor go through every day because she is also dyslexic.

“Because our brains aren't wired the same. And it happens when we develop. So we have to retrain the brain and we have to create new pathways,” said Martin.

They say a lot of their students can get by okay in kindergarten through third grade, but then a lot of independent reading kicks in and the difficulties stand out.

“The gap gets, as they go up through the grades, bigger and bigger for them,” said Jones.

Marianne says the best part is hearing from students after they've graduated from the program, and it makes it all worthwhile. It's a program so helpful to kids, there's a two-year waitlist just to get in. There are two centers in New York; Central New York and Rochester.