Anecdote: Learning to Read

A couple decades ago, a kind, gentle, funny, people-pleasing student came into the classroom early one day.  Generally, this 5th grade boy was happy and outgoing, always ready to make others feel included with a smile and a joke.  This particular morning, he walked into the classroom, shoulders stooped, sadness in his eyes, an aura of defeat about him.  Had he tried to please someone that just wasn’t having any of it?  Often, people-pleasers can feel let down when others don’t respond as hoped for.  Perhaps he had a disappointing encounter?

The heavy sigh that followed his, “Okay,” response to how he was doing that morning suggested this kid needed to share something.  Knowing we had some time before the other students would arrive, I asked him what was on his mind.  Immediately he blurted out that he was stupid and he would never be able to read.

My mind was racing.  No child should ever think they are stupid.  Why did he think he was stupid?  Why did he think he would never be able to read?  He struggled a bit to read, sure, but he was not incapable and he always added insightful comments or questions to discussions in the classroom.  And he was one of the hardest working students I’d met.  Where was this coming from?

I asked him.

He had been told years earlier that he was dyslexic and would probably never be able to read very well and would always struggle in school. There we were face-to-face having a heart-to-heart discussion: teacher-to-student and person-to-person.  He was weighed down by a stigma that had been placed on him by a label from someone who did not help him grow and could not hear his desire to read and to learn.  I was emboldened to do whatever was necessary to support his success so he could disprove the false narrative he had been told.

We had a pretty serious conversation: he was very smart and could improve his reading skills; it would take extra work, tutoring everyday after school to drill specific phonics and root concepts; if he wanted to improve his reading skills, if he thought he could improve, and if he would commit to the tutoring, he would succeed.  He said yes to the desire, he hesitated about being confident, he agreed quickly to the tutoring commitment.  Later that day, we confirmed with his parents that we could do this, and a glimmer of light was restored to his eyes.

This young man truly was one of the hardest working, persevering, and tenacious young men.  He stuck with tutoring for months.  By mid-Spring, he began reading out loud in class.  At the end of the year, he was the first to volunteer to do a Biblical reading at our last school Mass.