Learning to Read
When I was twelve my family moved to Greenbrier, Arkansas. I left a very small country school with 10 to 12 students per grade and enrolled in a much larger school with three classrooms full of of sixth graders that changed classes per subject. It was traumatic because I had a secret……….I could not read. Not a word and no one knew. It never occurred to me that I had been clever to cover-up or disguise my crisis, I was just deeply aware that everyone around me could decipher the mystery of written language except me. So I discerned that I was horribly, irreparably stupid. At my old school I had means of surviving. If there was a reading assignment I asked a friend to tell me the story. I was proficient in creating diversions and excuses.……and then I lost it all!!!!
Somehow I survived and completed the sixth grade. I joined band, continued with piano lessons and moved across campus to junior high school. I made a friend who asked me to attend a sleepover at her house. Her parents had purchased a video playing machine (a very rare item) and we got to watch Gone With the Wind. This civil war era story is epic in length and depth, but that didn’t prevent me from falling asleep half way through the four hour film. Shortly after I awoke the next morning my mom arrived to take me home and there I was, mentally anxious over the outcome of Scarlett O’Hara’s quest to survive against the odds. When I arrived home I found mom’s copy of the 1200+ page novel, started on page one and began teaching myself to read.
That year our school was getting a track installed around our existing football field and our math teacher used this as an opportunity to encourage a little critical thinking. She gave us formulas for circumference, perimeter and area along with the measurements of the field, the anticipated width of the new track and the cost per square foot. Our task was to find the exact area and calculate the taxpayers contribution to our new physical fitness opportunities. After instructing us she left the room and went to the teacher’s lounge for a cigarette. (Yes really!)
Mrs. Math returned and collected our work. Shortly she announced that only one student got the correct answer, ME!!!!! No one was more surprised than that teacher and myself. Then a beautiful, wonderful thing happened. She asked me to share how I arrived at my conclusions. On this day, seventh grade year, Greenbrier Junior High, I stopped being stupid. It took me twelve months to finish the first book I ever read, but I did, with comprehension. Soon I was reading everything. I continued to excelled at math and began to love school.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault I made it all the way to seventh grade as a non reader. I could play a Mozart piano sonata, I functioned well socially, became a cheerleader and hid my secret well. The curriculum of that era, used to its greatest effectiveness, would not have detected my delays or helped me overcome them. But God had a plan. He took away all my life preservers and threw me in the deep end of the pool.
Psalms 139 says, “You hem me in behind and before, and You lay Your hand upon me.” Yes indeed. God knew what was best. He didn’t toss me into the water to drown, but to swim and swim I did. He created me, knows me best and I can trust because He is good!
No Floaties for Me!
Gretchen