Those who read and write well, which most likely includes you if you’re reading this, typically take for granted the gift of literacy that allows us full access to society. The daily impact of sub-literacy, or low level reading, spelling, and writing, is not part of our experience. Even though you may not be aware of it, struggling to read and write is part of the life experience of many children and adults in your world.
The majority of people in our country suffer from illiteracy or sub-literacy. In the US, 65% of 4th graders are not proficient at reading and over 43 million adults are illiterate or functionally illiterate. These children and adults suffer, often silently, thinking they are dumb or broken and overcome by shame, embarrassment, and anger.
In this blog, I will share several stories to give you a peek inside the life of those who have suffered from lack of literacy. In addition, there are two books I highly recommend every educator, parent, or person interested in literacy read; they will take you deeply into the stories of the men who wrote them. Both were illiterate into adulthood until being taught to read, one at 29 and the other at 48. The degree of the emotional and sometimes physical trauma they experienced is laid bare. The content is jarring and often difficult to read but doing so will help you understand what your student, child, loved one – anyone – who struggles with literacy is experiencing on the inside.
The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read by John Corcoran
The Most Unlikely to Succeed by Nelson Lauver
The angst, trauma, and devastation that is a fallout of illiteracy and sub-literacy is evident every day with the children and adults who walk through the doors of our reading center. Their stories will convey the brokenness that comes from not having been taught to read. In my experience, the longer they go before being taught, the deeper the damage.
DAN, ADULT
Dan was the first person I taught when I opened my reading center in 1999. He was 54 and wanted to read in church. Dan invited a journalist from the Flint Journal to sit in on his EBLI sessions and write about his story. Here is the first paragraph from the article written in the paper: “The memories always troubled Dan: the failed spelling tests, the times he lost his way on family vacations because he couldn’t read the road signs and simply the frustration of being barely able to read in a society built on the written word.” He also shared, “I knew I wasn’t dumb, even if sometimes I felt like I was.”
Reading at a 1st grade level, Dan had drinking problems he blamed on his reading struggles and went through 35 jobs in quick succession. Every time a job he had required reading a note or writing something, he would just walk off the job and go home, telling his wife he’d quit again. He eventually got a job he held as a painter for the US Postal Service. Dan quit his EBLI lessons several times as the prospect of learning to read felt overwhelming and he worried about how his life would change. Even though it was difficult to live in the world with low-level literacy, at least it was familiar. Eventually, Dan finished 11 hours of instruction and was reading at a 9th grade level. In the years since, he got a different job with the post office that required taking a written exam and eventually started his own business, which continues to grow and thrive.
5th GRADER
This 5th grader was reading at a 3rd grade level, was bullied regularly at school, and cried every single day going to school. He went to a private school, his parents were very involved in his learning, and he had been getting outside reading tutoring for years. When I started to work with him, he was an expert at avoiding instruction. Being asked to read anything from a book, even with extensive and focused support and error correction, terrified him. His grades were poor, his attention was abysmal, and his parents were at a loss about how to help him. After his 2nd EBLI lesson, he happily bounded out of the car at school and never cried again about going to school. Within weeks he was on the Honor Roll, he was more focused, and the whole family was celebrating his turn around. Yes, he did make about 6 grade level gains in his reading, but his parents marvel that the emotional distress and family chaos all but disappeared once he was able to read, write, and participate successfully in grade level work. He is now a confident, competent young adult who is thriving in all aspects of life.
DAVID, ADULT
David was 62 and became a multi-millionaire at a young age. He became an entrepreneur soon after high school as he couldn’t fill out a job application and was the successful founder of 15 different companies.
However, he could not read or spell beyond memorizing, which caused him tremendous trauma and colored every aspect of his life. David was a happy go-lucky child before entering school. Even in Kindergarten, his reading difficulties were evident and he began being bullied by other children, and sometimes even teachers, very early in his school career. He became sullen and anxious, becoming an elective mute in 2nd grade for a few years to avoid the torture. In middle school, he was put in a classroom of severely mentally handicapped children for almost 2 years. He was told by a High School Guidance Counselor that he would amount to nothing, end up on the streets, and probably die young.
David worked excessively hard to be successful by society norms, and many people felt he had it all. He lived every day in anxiety and fear, concerned both about making errors because of his low-level literacy or that his closely guarded secret would be discovered. Despite being a licensed pilot himself, David was terrified of flying commercially as twice he had misread the departure list, gotten on the wrong plane, and ended up in the wrong city. He went bankrupt because of the inability to read a legal document. A few years ago his stomach ruptured, a life-threatening medical emergency. The doctors told him this was a result of the continuous high levels of stress hormone in his body.
In May 2021, David agreed to be filmed receiving EBLI instruction for The Truth About Reading documentary. When he started, he was totally unaware that English was a code and that it could be learned. His anxiety hindered his progress for about 5 hours of instruction, but then he had a breakthrough and soared. While he is thrilled about his ability to read and spell accurately and at high levels now, what he is most amazed about (as well as perplexed by) is the fact that he is feeling little to no anxiety. He hadn’t experienced that lack of anxiety for almost 6 decades. I will be interviewing David with Q&A at the end for our December 2nd webinar The Multi-Millionaire Who Struggled to Read and Write.
1st GRADER
How young do children become traumatized by their lack of literacy? Sometimes almost as soon as they enter school. I heard the story of Cora through her mom Katie’s interview on the Melissa and Lori Love Literacy podcast. In a nutshell, Cora was a joyful child before starting school but quickly became depressed and was in need of therapy by the time she was 7 because of her limited literacy progress. This story felt very close to home as it reminded me of my own daughter, Colleen’s difficulties, which led me to the world of literacy instruction (you can hear more about that in the video above). Anyway, in 1st grade, Cora spent each recess hiding behind a large rock on the playground. Her teacher used recess time to pull in students and assess their reading in leveled books. Cora preferred missing recess…every recess…to the humiliation and angst that resulted from being asked to read when she couldn’t do it.
JIHAD, CARDIOVASCULAR SURGEON
Jihad is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon in his 50’s who invented a procedure to prevent amputations resulting from vascular incidents. He teaches surgeons from around the world.
As a young man, he was unusually brilliant with impressive abilities in math but was a weak reader. He was on a path to become a physicist when his older brother was murdered. His father asked Jihad to honor his brother, who was studying to become a doctor, and become a doctor himself. The reading required in medical school forced Jihad to create his own system – which was time-consuming and tedious – to get through the written material.
Jihad managed with his laborious system until he took his recertification exams in 2016. He was supporting his wife and son through intensive health emergencies and did not have time to rewrite the textbooks and study materials using his re-coding process. As a result, he could not get through the reading material fast enough during the timed test and he did not pass his exam. The second time he failed, he lost his hospital privileges. If he were to fail again, he would lose his medical license.
Around this time he was diagnosed with dyslexia, and also was found to have an astronomically high IQ. Jihad’s office manager had a sister-in-law who was a reading specialist and she suggested they contact me for instruction. I met with Jihad and taught him EBLI for 5 hours. He was so astounded with the English code and the patterns that were evident that he would stop during instruction and take a picture of his work on the whiteboard. His reading accuracy, speed, and comprehension skyrocketed. A few months later, he passed his recertification exams.
At the time he was learning, Jihad fiercely protected his secret about his literacy struggles. Very few people were aware of his situation. Now, a few years later, he has been willing to share his story on film so that others understand how prevalent and wide-reaching the impact of being unable to read, write, or spell proficiently truly is.
I could fill hundreds of pages with stories of those who have suffered from illiteracy or sub-literacy for weeks, months, years, decades. There are some factors that are consistent across almost all of their stories: feeling anxiety, trauma, shame, embarrassment, their keen ability to hide their difficulties, thinking they are broken or dumb, clever tactics to avoid reading and writing, a feeling that they are at fault for their struggles. The most tragic part is that all of this immense suffering is preventable. If those you just read about were able to learn to read at the age of 7 or 12 or 52 or 55 or 62, they could have learned at 5 years old if they’d received streamlined, research- aligned instruction. The students are not what is broken, the instruction is.
When we provide effective, efficient instruction that is based on the research in early grades, we can help 95-100% of our children to become highly proficient readers. Currently in our country, we have 35% who are proficient or highly proficient readers. This is a travesty!
Children who struggle with reading grow into adults who struggle with reading. The devastation that results can be avoided when we are committed to discontinuing ineffective instructional practices and instead providing instruction that helps every learner reach their highest literacy potential.