I have shared with you before my experience with learning to read. My Uncle John and his wife Mayme were living with us temporarily during the early days of the Great Depression. We lived in Cincinnati, O. They had no children and Uncle John was very fond of my brothers, sister and me. He introduced me to reading. I intuitively learned to read so his task was to supply materials that would increase my skills. So basically I had learned to read before going to school at the age of five. As I mentioned before I was quite small, so small that I had to have a cigar box under my desk because my feet would not reach the floor so I had my own little foot rest. The nun was pretty sure that someone as small as I, could not possibly have any skills. I was placed in the 2nd reading group.
We had a large sand box in the back of the room that had legs on it so that we could stand by it and do multi-sensory tasks to reinforce our letter-sound connection. Muscle memory, we traced the letter in the sand and said the sound the letter made as we traced. This was a practice that was first used by the ancient Greeks. While the first reading group sat on small chairs and read from the primer, I and the others in my group did our vowels and consonant sounds in the sand.
Every day when I arrived home, my dad would ask if I was still in the 'slow ' group and every day I would have to admit that I was still there. Christmas was coming and he said if I didn't get into the fast group Santa might not visit me. My Uncle John was doubly concerned because he knew that I was progressing at a rapid rate! OK, the chips were down! After hearing this threat a few more times and Christmas was drawing near, I took matters into my own hands!
One day when Sister Mary Albert called the first group up to the chairs to read, I casually joined them. She said, "Elizabeth, you do not belong in this group." I said,,,,,,,,"Yes, I do." The die was cast! She relented and said, "We'll try you out and see if you do." I read perfectly!!
When I got home that day and Dad came forth with his question, I could say, yes! He insisted on the details and when I gave them to him, he, Uncle John, Aunt Mayme and my mother got quite a laugh out of it. You gotta' do what you gotta do!
I have been a reader ever since. When you read, you can be anything you want to be, and go any place you want to go. You can store up knowledge on thousands of subjects and be aware of other's ideas and ideals. You can refer to your memory bank to make more intelligent choices and more informed decisions.
I devoted about 40 years to teaching reading to others that have a difficult time learning to read. It does not come naturally to all people. Those of us that learned to read intuitively are truly blessed. A large percentage of children that start school do not have the innate ability to read. They have to be taught to decode, they have to be taught to distinguish sounds, they have to be taught the rules of spelling and decoding. I spent many years teaching Linguistics to the reading impaired. I loved every minute of it ! It is such a rewarding thing to hear a student say, with awe, "I can read that!"
When I first went to MDS, the class was told that I was to be their Linguistics Teacher, one girl went home and told her parents, "We got a new teacher today, she is going to teach us about Linguine."
I not only taught children to read, I also taught adult learners. The rewards are overwhelming. Just a few years ago I had the opportunity to be in the same group as a former adult learner. We had a hug and greet event and someone asked him how he knew me. He said, "She taught me to read and get through college!" How wonderful to be given the credit for that.
Everyone needs to be aware of the fact that there are so many among us that cannot read, through no fault of their own. Do all that you can do to help them get help. Almost without exception they are above average in intelligence and can be great contributers to society, if only someone will give them this gift.
Help a non reader! Ciao
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