Betsy Primm and Ann Marie Lewis were recognized at An Evening at The Carter Center on October 23, 2025 for their leadership and dedication to literacy and dyslexia awareness.
Betsy Primm, 2025 IDA-GA Leadership in Literacy Award Winner
Betsy Primm is a lifelong educator who has dedicated her career to helping parents and teachers meet the needs of children with neurologically based reading and learning challenges in Georgia and beyond. Trained in special education, she embraced the principle that frequency, intensity, and duration are essential for effective remediation. At West Georgia RESA (then CESA), she helped establish the area’s first public school resource room programs for children with learning disabilities, coaching new teachers and organizing community volunteers to assist in their classrooms. She also played a key role in advocating for HB 671, the legislation requiring all Georgia-certified teachers to complete coursework in identifying and educating exceptional children.
As director of the Georgia Learning Resources System, Metro East division in Atlanta, Betsy continued her commitment to professional development. She provided training and support to educators and parents, which included managing the state’s largest special education commercial materials and equipment lending library and a teacher “make and take” instructional production center. She also served as a certified mediator through the Justice Center of Atlanta, where she was a member of the Justice Center’s team that trains professionals in special education mediation throughout the United States and abroad.
After the release of the National Reading Panel report, Betsy combined her training expertise with her commitment to structured, intensive reading intervention by designing a unique reading model for Buford City Schools. She trained high school students to deliver one-on-one, daily instruction to struggling first graders using the Direct Instruction phonics-based program comprising Engelmann’s Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. The program’s strong results earned Buford City both state and national recognition.
Today, Betsy continues to advance literacy as a member of the Executive Board of the Georgia Preschool Association. She is the lead content developer of Developing Sound Sense a free, online phonological awareness curriculum sponsored by the Georgia Preschool Association and designed for individual or small group instruction. The curriculum is available at (www.developingsoundsense.org). It has reached millions of teachers, tutors, and parents, worldwide.
Ann Marie Lewis, 2025 IDA-GA Outstanding Service Award Winner
Ann Marie Lewis, M.Ed., C/OGA, C-SLDS, is a dyslexia specialist who discovered her passion for understanding how people learn while studying cognitive psychology and conducting research on learning and memory at Tulane University. She went on to earn her M.Ed. in Learning Disabilities from Georgia State University and worked at The Schenck School alongside other passionate Orton-Gillingham teachers until she began tutoring students full-time in 2000. She is a CERI-certified Structured Literacy Dyslexia Specialist and has been an Orton Gillingham Academy (OGA) Certified Level Practitioner since 1999.
Over the years, Ann Marie has become quite the passionate logophile. She delights in sharing her love of words and language with her students. She uses storytelling, problem-solving games, and hands-on activities to make learning about language engaging and accessible. She values turning overwhelming concepts into confidence-building successes.
Ann Marie has served as Outreach Coordinator for the International Dyslexia Association Georgia since 2002 and is an IDA Orton Oak, having been a member of IDA for over 25 years. In her work with IDA-GA, she maintains the Georgia Branch website and YouTube Channel and creates social media posts, newsletters, programs, and resource guides. She works with the IDA Board on endeavors to inform the public about dyslexia and the importance of structured literacy intervention, and she enjoys coordinating initiatives that bring together students, parents, educators, and community partners. She also supports colleagues across IDA branches, offering encouragement and ideas to help advance their own projects.
Ann Marie is especially inspired by IDA’s mission “to create a future for all individuals who struggle with dyslexia and other related reading differences so that they may have richer, more robust lives and access to the tools and resources they need.