About Me
personal background
Who I am
My name is Anna Ingram and I have lived in Eugene, OR since 1998. I moved here from Ohio (where I grew up) after first attending West Virginia University - graduating with an English degree with a concentration in creative writing and a communications minor.
My husband, a Eugene native, and I met in 2002 on a blind date and married in 2004 after his deployment to Iraq and Kuwait in 2003. We have 2 boys born in 2006 and 2009.
What I've Been Doing
I started work at the University of Oregon in early 2004 as an event planner for the Oregon Reading First Center and have held several positions over the course of my time at the Center on Teaching and Learning which is a research unit in the College of Education. I helped start and manage the CTL Reading Clinic in 2008 and worked with several PhDs and grad students over the course of the 12 years or so that I worked there. In 2016 I joined the National Center on Improving Literacy which was funded to the UO for 5 years. We were recently re-funded, but UO is now a partner in the endeavor. I work on social media, infographics, newsletters, and tutorials as part of my work on the Dissemination Team. I also work in some capacity with the Parents and Families team.
Why I'm Doing This
Because I have a son who has dyslexia - actually, it's nearly impossible to get someone diagnosed with dyslexia in Eugene, Oregon, or at least it was when I was trying to do that. But he has been assessed twice and has all of the markers of suspected dyslexia. Providing him with a word to describe why things were happening the way they were with his reading, gave him a huge amount of agency over how he discussed his problems with people. Being able to say that you have a brain difference is a game-changer.
Anyway, I am doing this because there are virtually no resources for reading issues in Eugene. Our CTL Reading Clinic - which was on its last legs for years - did not survive COVID and what I'd really like to do is give parents information so that they can feel that they have some power to do something and don't have to go through what I did.
It disturbs me when I consider my knowledge base about good reading instruction and yet I still couldn't get the help for my son that he needed. So, I want to bring national and local resources to the parents of Eugene. I want to share my experiences with them so that they can learn from the things that I've been through with my son.
Disclaimer
I am not an expert. I don't have a Ph.D., I just hang out with lots of people who have Ph.Ds. I've never been a teacher. All the things I say here are my own thoughts and opinions and while my thoughts and opinions are informed by the work that I've been doing for the last 19 years, this blog/website is what I am doing in my free time - because I'm fun like that. Everything I say here is also informed by the years that I've been advocating for my son - let's call that a trial by fire.
As a person who works for federally-funded grant projects and a public university, I can't have opinions about some things while I'm working. But I'm allowed to have opinions on my own time, and the truth is that most if not all of my opinions are going to align with what I know from working on federally-funded projects and in a public university research unit.