The June Stern Family Foundation is a small nonprofit dedicated to helping K-3 teachers in Minnesota’s Twin Cities area to more effectively teach reading, writing and spelling. We are a volunteer organization composed of the family of June O. Stern, who had the vision, and Philip J. Stern, who made it possible.

JSFF provides scholarships to individual teachers and grants to schools that need financial assistance in order to pursue a research-based language-instruction program for teachers that includes a supervised practicum and meets the standards of The National Reading Panel. These methods have proved to be highly successful with all children and are crucial for those with dyslexia, the most common learning disability.

Acceptable training includes Orton-Gillingham-based approaches, such as Orton-Gillingham of Minnesota, The International Dyslexia Association-Upper Midwest Branch (IDA-UMB), The Reading Center (Dyslexia Institute of Minnesota), Winsor Learning (The Sonday System) and others.

For more information, see JSFF Teacher Scholarships and JSFF School Grants. If you have questions, please email