Newfound confidence: Derby wrestler Armoni Coppins successfully battles dyslexia

Armoni Coppins stood before the Woodlawn United Methodist church congregation two Sundays ago, hand-picked by Derby football coach Brandon Clark to give a motivational reading of the fable “Belling the Cat” at three services to more than a combined 1,000 people.

Coppins, a senior, had only the slightest bit of nerves as he read. His days of fearing reading aloud in front of classmates is a mere memory to the point that he didn’t consider it a high-water moment.

Even though four years earlier, dyslexia forced him to relearn the letters of the alphabet and their sounds.

“I was pretty confident (reading),” said Coppins, who was a receiver for the football team and is a wrestler at 195 pounds. “I don’t think I would have been able to do it several years ago, though.”

Coppins is conquering dyslexia. It’s not defeated, and it may never be. However, he gets As and Bs and enjoys reading. He’s thinking of attending Cowley College, or maybe he’ll join the military or become a train conductor.

“I’m super proud of him,” said his mom, Nikki Coppins. “I always tell him I learned way more from him than he will ever learn from me.”

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Coppins’ education was spotty for his first two years of school. Born into foster care to teenage parents in Detroit, he grew up with little guidance or discipline. He rarely attended school, and structure was an unknown.

His life changed dramatically at 7 when his uncle, Larry Coppins, adopted him.

“He was living with my parents, and I grew up in that same house,” Larry Coppins said. “I knew that it wasn’t the best way for for him to grow up. I don’t think he would have been offered the same opportunities.… He wasn’t being raised a kid. We were raised as you came and did what you wanted to do.”

Even before Larry and Nikki Coppins married in 2002, they had decided to adopt Armoni. The adoption was finalized in December 2004.

“Those first two years were the most difficult behaviorally,” Nikki Coppins said. “Him having structure, expectations, going to school every day — those things hadn’t happened in the past.”

It was rough.

“I couldn’t do whatever I wanted, and when I was a kid, that’s what I wanted,” Coppins said. “Now that I’m grown up, I see that’s not the way it should have been.”

During the transition, though, he discovered his parents’ unconditional love.

“I think I had a little of the love that I needed (before), but not as much as I should have had,” Coppins said. “… I think I realized how much my mom and dad loved me when I was about 8 or 9. I got really mad at my parents, and I ran away. I just ran down the street, but they came looking for me.”

As he and his parents grew closer as a family — they also have two younger daughters, Adison and Autumn — Coppins continued to struggle in school.

Those struggles were initially linked to his lack of schooling in Detroit and, then, his dad being deployed with the Army in 2005.

In fourth grade, though, Coppins was diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia and dysgraphia. Medicine immediately improved his focus and behavior.

What didn’t change was his ability to read.

“Whenever we’d read, I always felt like I was really slow, behind everyone else,” he said. “I hated reading.”

He dreaded reading aloud, but he slipped by because he comprehended well, memorized words and had a wide vocabulary.

“It was a challenge to get him services,” Nikki Coppins said. “He can cope and cut corners to get answers and get decent scores on tests. But if I gave him a three-letter word, he can’t sound it out.”

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When Coppins floundered in middle school, his mother became even more vocal about getting him extra help.

Nikki Coppins insisted on a meeting in sixth grade — even though his teachers said he was doing fine. Nightly four-hour homework sessions told her they were wrong.

“He wasn’t a great student, but he wasn’t a red flag,” said Susan Topping, a speech language pathologist in Derby who is a certified academic language therapist. “He’s a smart, smart kid, and he didn’t stand out to teachers.”

Coppins got the necessary screening, which is when Topping discovered he couldn’t read nonsense words (such as gud) andcouldn’t tell the sounds he’d heard or the order he heard them in.

“I was literally like, ‘Oh, what the hell!’ Here he is in in sixth grade,” Topping said. “I didn’t know where to start. If he’s a little kid, we start basic, but he’s already in middle school.”

There was some progress through middle school, which is also when Coppins failed to make the basketball team. So he went out for wrestling.

Derby coach Bill Ross said Coppins, now one of the Panthers’ four captains, has an unorthodox style that opponents find difficult to counter. Coppins placed sixth in Class 6A at 195 pounds in 2014. He’s 19-11 heading into Thursday’s dual at Maize.

Coppins’ persistence and dedication manifested themselves most after he entered Take Flight, a national two-year program for students with dyslexia.

“What you have to understand is, (Take Flight) starts at the beginning — here’s a lowercase ‘p,’ it says ‘puh.’ It says ‘pig,’” Topping said.

It took two years of intensive one-on-one time with an instructor. He was retaught the basics of decoding and spelling.

Coppins embraced the new learning, which focused on a multi-sensory way to access different parts of his brain, Topping said.

“When I started getting help with my reading and writing, I realized I could push past this,” Coppins said.

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Coppins entered high school with a reading level at least three grades below where he should be. Two years later, he was at grade level.

He no longer has to read the same page repeatedly, and he reads for enjoyment.

He’s one of the few Derby students to finish all the components of the pre-engineering program, which begins in sixth grade, Topping said.

And he’s an ideal mentor to younger students, according to Topping, because he’s a successful athlete.

“A lot of people have dyslexia, and they’re afraid to tell it,” Coppins said. “People might think they’re stupid.

“… I’ve lived with it, and I know I have it. I don’t see the point of hiding it. It’s just the way I am.”

And two Sundays ago he comfortably read a fable aloud in front of a huge audience.

“When I read, I’m really confident,” he said. “This is just where I am now.”

This story was originally published February 5, 2015 at 12:18 PM with the headline "Newfound confidence: Derby wrestler Armoni Coppins successfully battles dyslexia."