Chiara Nicastro overcame dyslexia to excel
How does a young woman transform herself from a struggling reader to a successful international scholar? Hard work, grit and the right kind of help.
Chiara Nicastro spent eight difficult years in school before she was diagnosed as dyslexic in ninth grade and started getting the extra help she needed to succeed.
“When you’re little you care more about recess than about math class,” Nicastro said. “I started to notice that I was at the bottom of the list and had to sit next to the teacher. I got pulled out of class a lot for special tutoring.”
Even that extra attention wasn’t helping Nicastro academically. But, when she left St. John School and enrolled in Ursuline, her academic life began to shift. “One of my teachers told my parents I should get tested. I knew I wasn’t stupid, but sometimes I felt that way.”
With a diagnosis of a learning disability, Nicastro was able to get access to support tailored to her unique learning style and she began to blossom in school. “Suddenly, my C’s, D’s and F’s became A’s and B’s. Things all of a sudden just clicked and I had a brand new tool kit.”
Nicastro discovered that she is capable and intelligent and that she learns differently than others. “I don’t read the way you read,” she said.
After two years at Ursuline, the high school closed and Nicastro transferred to Healdsburg High School. “She flourished there,” said her godmother, Valorie Cronin. “She was a student representative to the school board. She made her mark.”
Cronin and her family were close to the Nicastros and Cronin saw her goddaughter often. “We always wondered if she was going to run off and join the rodeo,” Cronin said. “She loved horses and she was so fearless.”
In 2013, Nicastro graduated HHS and began to look at colleges. Even though the tuition was probably unaffordable, she and her mother went to visit Lewis & Clark College in Portland. While they were there, they checked out a farmers’ market on the Portland State campus. “I fell in love with it.”
Nicastro was accepted at Portland State, but at first she was nudged into self-esteem issues. “I was alone there and the average age was 26; I was 18,” she said. “I had impostor syndrome.”
Then, she met Kim Brown, a professor of international and global studies. “After I turned in my first paper my instructor and her assistant pulled me into the office,” said Nicastro. Brown’s assistant, Rosa David, is working on her Ph.D. and also has learning disabilities. David and Brown talked to Nicastro about her limitless future.
“If she needed extra time on an exam or needed another round of edits on a paper, I’d give that to her,” Brown said by telephone last week. In exchange for extra support, Brown expected Nicastro to work extra hard. “When I see someone who is smart and gifted, I push them.”
Brown encouraged Nicastro apply to become a McNair Scholar, which allowed her to travel to Mexico and Costa Rica to pursue her interests in international studies.
That experience whetted her appetite for travel and global issues and Brown pushed her again, this time to apply to become a Fulbright Scholar. She was chosen and is one of 1,900 U.S. students who will work and study abroad next year. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and scholars are chosen by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
According to a press release from the Department of State, “Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement as well as record of service and leadership potential in their respective fields.”
Nicastro graduated Portland State with her undergraduate degree in international studies and will remain there during her Fulbright fellowship. The Fulbright will pay her to travel and she expects to be teaching English in Madrid, Spain. “It’s an inner city high school with a lot of diversity, a lot of refugees. I’ll be working in youth development and cross cultural learning.”
Brown is proud of her student and predicts that Nicastro will continue to grow. “Because of the number of times she’s had to adapt, she has an amazing amount of grit, determination and resilience. I draw tremendous strength from working with Chiara because of her intellectual curiosity and spirit.”
