Kapiolani Barber and her husband, Bruno Stempel, knew their daughter needed help, but three years of following every lead and researching every angle had left them with more questions than answers.

The girl was obviously bright, yet her natural intelligence just didn’t translate to the classroom. By the first grade she was already behind and struggling for footing. Each new school year brought the prospect of losing more ground.

Barber and Stempel had met with teachers and principals and Department of Education administrators and had heard their share of “Don’t worry, she’ll catch up,” and “You think THAT’s bad?” and “Well, what would YOU like to do?” Mostly they smiled and took it on the chin, except for the one time when Barber felt it necessary to politely but firmly put one administrator in his place for literally laughing in her face.

They moved their daughter from public to charter to private school in hopes of finding an education setting that matched her needs. They swallowed hard and put up the $2,000 out-of-pocket payment to have the girl tested, a wise investment that yielded the revelation that she had dyslexia, a learning disorder that affects reading.

The diagnosis was painfully resonant. Stempel also has dyslexia. As an adolescent he struggled to keep up in the classroom and stooped under the stigma of being behind his peers.

A standout prep lacrosse player, Stempel had his pick of Ivy League schools eager to add his talents to their athletic programs. He rejected them all, so sure was he that he wouldn’t be able to survive academically.

“Being dyslexic made him feel ‘less than,’” said Barber. “That kind of stigma can stick with you throughout your life.”

Knowing what their daughter was dealing with helped, but it was still difficult to find a person, a program, anything willing and qualified to act on that knowledge. And the more time that passed, the more anxiety the couple felt in not being able to get their daughter the help she needed.

“There were a lot of nights when my husband and I were just distraught,” Barber said. “The whole experience left us feeling exhausted.”

Then, finally, a break: The principal of the girl’s current school knew someone with solid credentials and a proven track record of successfully working with children who have dyslexia.

And so, in October 2017, with high hopes and great anticipation, Barber called Joyce Torrey and asked if she would tutor her daughter.

“And she said no!” Barber said, her voice pitched with incredulity.

Not one for shortcuts and half-measures, Torrey rejected the request because distance and schedules would have meant that Barber would only have been able to bring her daughter for tutoring once a week. Torrey’s years of experience taught her that the girl would need at least two one-hour sessions a week to benefit from the tutoring.

But Torrey’s “no” was more like a “no for now.” After consulting with the girl’s principal, Torrey contacted Barber and said she could see the child once a week, but for two hours instead of just one.

In the new tutor, Barber, executive director of the Nanakuli Housing Foundation, found not just a highly qualified teacher, but also something of a kindred spirit, a person whose commitment to uplifting those in need was equal to her own.

Torrey holds a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Hawaii, a Master of Arts in French from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and a Master of Education from Harvard. Making good on her childhood goal of being a teacher, she taught French at Punahou School and Hanahauoli School in the 1970s and ’80s before starting her own public relations company.

After volunteering as a teacher’s assistant at Kaiulani and Noelani elementary schools, Torrey decided to focus her efforts on helping students with learning disabilities and earned certification in the Orton-Gillingham Approach, a teaching method that has proved effective in helping students with dyslexia.

When Barber and her daughter arrived for the first tutoring session at Torrey’s home, Torrey had Barber sit nearby on the couch so she could follow along.

“Anyone can just drop their child off and go to the mall,” Torrey said. “But if you want to help your child, you have to have skin in the game.”

And so, over the course of weeks and months, Barber found herself immersed in a “language-based, multisensory, structured, sequential, cumulative, cognitive, flexible and emotionally sound” teaching method that was not-so-slowly and ever-so-surely redefining what her daughter was capable of doing. Along the way, she and Torrey forged the sort of teacher-parent partnership of which Torrey had only dreamed.

“I waited 18 years for a parent like Kapio (Barber),” Torrey said.

Following the O-G Approach, Torrey walked the girl through a sequence of lessons on phonemic awareness, letter recognition, consonant digraphs, letter combinations, keywords and other foundational knowledge. To this she also added her own lessons on grammar, sentence structure and contextual recognition.

And she made it fun. There were games in which the girl ran around retrieving flash cards representing specific vowel and consonant combinations. She practiced contractions using physical movement. She and Torrey even incorporated her experience in hula to choreograph rules of grammar.

“It’s kinesthetic and action-driven, which expand the ways that we can crack that language code,” Torrey said.

Through Torrey and Barber’s collaborative efforts, Barber’s daughter, now in fifth grade, has blossomed as a student. She no longer hesitates to raise her hand in class. She has the confidence to lead when the opportunity arises. She’ll inform her mother that a single musubi won’t be “sufficient” for lunch and that she considers a certain consonant pairing to be her “nemesis.” She’s even taken to using colored markers to identify parts of speech in her assigned readings just because.

“There are so many kids out there who could use this kind of help,” Barber said. “Can you imagine what it would do for the community if they got it?”

For more information about dyslexia or to see a list of tutors, visit the International Dyslexia Association of Hawaii website at hi.dyslexiaida.org or call 538-7007. Help is also available through the Learning Disabilities Association of Hawaii at 536-9684. To reach Joyce Torrey, email plus3030@hawaii.rr.com or call 218-7217.

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.