Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

speakup

I shouldn't be able to read, nor should I be able to write this story but I am. I am one of the lucky few that know what it is like to be illiterate. I have a story to tell. One that you may never hear again, and one I know you could never completely understand... unless you're like me.

Greg Agnew/Times & Transcript

Kate O'Brien of Moncton High SChool is one of this years Frye Festival essay winners.

At age 10, I was diagnosed as with a complex learning disability. I was unable to read in either French or English at a kindergarten level. I had a 70 per cent chance of never being able to read and write. Unlike many of my friends at that age who were known to be illiterate by the school system, I had learned to hide my disability very well.

Everyday before I went to bed my father would read me a story. I would bring home the book we were reading in school and ask my father to read it to me as my bed time story. As my father read, I would repeat each word he said in my mind, thus committing it to my memory. Sometimes we would read ahead of the class but that didn't matter. I could recall any specific sections of any passage of almost any book that I had been read.

For a long time I didn't understand what reading was. I assumed that it involved memorizing stories. I had thought that was how my friends read. I could see some of my classmates struggle in the class, while others could read with ease. I thought that those who had trouble reading simply had a hard time memorizing the words.

Most of my classmates helped each other out when someone was called on to read in class. I was notorious for mouthing the words to those who could not read. Many in my third grade class struggled to read the basic books given to us.

And then one day, I knew I was different. It was at a girlfriend's sleep over. We had all gone to bed expect for one of my closest friends and I. I had been sleeping on the floor but had moved up to join her on the bed. She suggested that I read a book to fall asleep. I picked out a book I have never seen before and opened it to the first page.

I looked at the words on the page; they made no sense to me. I remember looking over to my friend who was semi-asleep and shaking her awake. I asked her what the story was about, I hoped that it was one I knew. She looked at the cover and slowly with her finger under the title, read to me what it said. I didn't know the story.

Quietly I asked her to read it to me. At this point in my story I would like to say that I still assumed that she had had the story read to her, but as I watched her read to me, I could tell that she was reading the words, not remembering from memory. At that point, I knew somehow that I had moved from being able to read, to not being able to read.

A few weeks later, my mother came to visit my teacher because the teacher had some concerns about me. My teacher told my mother during that meeting that I could not read. I went to a psychologist to get tested. She told my mother after the tests that I had a 70 per cent chance of never being able to read or write. I remember parts of the testing where the psychologist would ask me to read a passage. It was painful to read them. I would start, then stop and stumble, guessing at the words and their hidden meanings.

I was lucky my family could afford the cost of a daily private tutoring sessions, I know we did without so that I could have a chance to learn to read and write. I also know that many of my friends who could not read did not have the money to do the things that my mother did in order for me to be who I am today.

It took a year of intense daily private tutoring sessions for me to break the code of reading. To understand how words were put together and how to sound them out.

It has taken me much longer to be able to write the way I write today. I find that I've broken the code to writing. I have had to work twice, if not three times, as hard as any other regular student in order for me to achieve the same level of success that they have. Homework time for me takes me at least time and a half or more to do the same amount of work as a regular student.

My mother calls this, my disability, a blessing in disguise because I can relate to people who have difficulty in their lives.

I don't call it anything, it's a part of who I am. Most people wonder what it would be like to be unable to read. They will write their essays attempting to show that they understand the gravity of the problems that people face everyday because of their illiteracy.

They never know what it is like, and for those who do, it's impossible to tell anyone what it's like. What I have written is nowhere even close to seeing what it is like to be illiterate, nor could I write a book on what illiteracy is like.

I may be one of the lucky ones that have learned to overcome this disability, but there are still many who will never know the joys of reading and expressing ones self on paper.