“Hello, Ma’am! Remember me? I was the one you used to give small reading lists to,” a lovely young lady walked up to me at a reception one evening. “Farah*,” I said, pleasantly surprised to see how beautiful and confident she had grown to be.
“Yes! You remember me! Ma’am, my mother often remembers your timely support. I couldn’t read back then, now I’m a medical practitioner!” she gushed.
I remember vividly, during one of my rounds to the library, seeing this petite little girl flipping through a picture book. In grade 2, this was unusual, as most others were reading stories. I sat beside her and got talking. I realized that she was unable to read anything at all at her grade level. I invited her to my room and presented a grade-level 1 book, which she couldn’t read. I realized she was too swift to move her gaze from left to right. Perhaps it was the anxiety to get done with the exercise quickly or the poor reading mechanics she had developed over the years. Any word that began with a ‘wh’ became ‘what,’ even if it were ‘when’ or ‘where.’ I felt if she could dwell on the first few letters and figure them out before taking in the rest of the word, she’d probably learn better. I decided to give my hunch a try. I began teaching her to cover the word, look carefully at the first few letters, and gradually uncover the rest of the word. The technique worked, and I noticed she began to slow down when looking at words. Using a combination of phonics and the look-and-say method using Dolch lists, we could cover the first list in a week. Seeing it work, I called her mother and shared the list of words we had covered, and the method used. I added 15 words to the list each week and supplemented these with grade-level stories as she progressed. The next year, she moved to the junior school, and I no longer could monitor her progress, though her teacher reported an improvement in her reading skills.
I feel proud to share this success story and immensely grateful for having played a small part in it. Most importantly, it’s a great reminder to all teachers that all children can learn if we teach them in the ways that they learn best.
*Name changed for confidentiality. The anecdote described is from the period when the author served as the head of the school at Nasr School, Banjara Hills.”
