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HJI History
The Hettie Johnson Institute is named in honor of Hettie Johnson, whose decades of dedication to dyslexia education laid the foundation for HJI's mission.
Hettie began her career as a speech-language pathologist in 1970, earning her B.S. in Speech-Language Pathology from Auburn University and her M.A. from the University of Montevallo, along with traineeships at Duke University and the Birmingham VA Hospital.
Since 2000, Hettie dedicated herself to understanding and treating dyslexia, becoming a specialist committed to teaching learning strategies that reduce anxiety and empower learning across the curriculum for people of all ages. Over the next two decades, she would go on to publish and present her work at both national and international levels, and share her expertise by holding offices of several speech-language and organizations around the state of Alabama.
Outside of her professional life, Hettie is a devoted wife to her husband Bill and grandmother to five grandchildren. She's an active member of the choir at Hunter Street Baptist Church, an adventurous spirit who loves skiing, kayaking, paddleboarding, hiking, and biking, and an avid reader with tastes ranging from historical fiction to dyslexia research.
The Hettie Johnson Institute carries forward her legacy: a belief that every learner, regardless of how their brain processes language, deserves the tools and support to thrive.
Below, you will find Hettie's resource library and blog, containing information on dyslexia and learning strategies.
Hettie Johnson's Blog
"You may have read a recent article about Mississippi schools’ success, however, the current article from Harvard is light-years more complete and powerful to teach overall literacy skills.
Now that I realize that the Mississippi program, while it has been very successful, focuses on phonics, which is huge and necessary, it doesn’t include morphology, syntactic, vocabulary, and background knowledge.
An excellent teacher would incorporate these pieces naturally but those who strictly follow the phonics piece of the MS article would miss the boat because even if you can decode words perfectly, you won’t comprehend if you lack the vocabulary & sufficient background knowledge." - Hettie Johnson, MA, CCC-SLP
This game is to improve your child’s phonological awareness (PA) skills as they play with sounds. PA is the ability to play with sounds in your head and is foundational for spelling and reading.
These barrier games are all about having fun reading and writing in a game situation. The more you enjoy doing these with your child, the more you will see your child enjoy reading and writing more and more.