Educational Miracle!

Somewhere in the last month, after five years of trying, M--- finally cracked the code and learned to read.

For you and I, reading is not so much an act of decoding as it is recognition. Educated adult readers don’t sound words out. Most words have become what literacy teachers call “sight words,” words known at first glance by their contours and context. For a little refresher of the difference, try and find a word that you still need to sound out, ---usually the back of a horrifically unnatural food product will do. Truly, try it! Articulating “bicarbodemiphosphoethylate” might help you remember what it was like to learn to read.

At this point in the year, most of my fifth graders are somewhere between totally fluent (230 words per minute) and the beginnings of real automaticity. (90 words per minute) There is still a back of the pack, reading in the 60s, but even they are starting to make some progress.

Not M---. As of early February, M--- was reading about 24 words per minute, taking an average of two seconds per word. Even worse, most of these 24 words were sight words that he had memorized. He couldn’t break the code of new words. Reading a 2nd to 5th grade text, M--- would produce a stream of “the,” “and,” “of” etc. M--- was a “non-decoder.”

He had been reading at this pace, struggling to remember even the most common and basic of phonic patterns for years. I worked with him intensively every morning throughout all of last year. He had been receiving small group support in special education for over a year. There has been no lack of effort from him, either. He is without question among the five most respectful, focused and hardest working students of the 200 to cross my path. He had been at school, in the United States, for nearly five years and he had not learned to read.

Then, somewhere between early February and now, M--- started reading.

I will remember the moment forever. We were in our after-school “Super Science School” and we were writing down important details from a silently read page on tornadoes in a concept map.

M--- raised his hand. I called on him. M--- paraphrased the text to me, talking about the high wind speed of tornadoes. I asked him where he got the information, he pointed to the paragraph and read it to me. M--- has learned to deal with his inability to read by bringing terrific focus and effort to bear on all oral reading and discussion, so I didn’t believe he was reading until I saw his finger, under the word and the word coming out of his mouth. I still doubted him though and thought that maybe he had heard someone read it and memorized it. So I had him keep going. He did.

He didn’t read the sentences completely or even competently, but he cracked the code. Instead of a smattering of side words, there was, sound-by-sound a sentence being read.

I cheered. I cheered so loud that the kids stared at me. I wondered why they weren’t sharing my joy and surprise, then I remembered that M--- has been out of our class for reading all year, so they don’t know much about his difficulties. I recomposed myself and we moved on, but every time I looked at M--- I couldn’t stop smiling.

We had a meeting for him on Friday morning. His mother said that she had noticed the improvement as well, as suddenly M--- could now read simple books to his little brothers.
I congratulated his special education teacher and she congratulated me, but neither of us have any idea when, or why, or how, it really happened. While perhaps there is a neurological explanation, it surely seems to be an educational miracle and we are truly grateful for it.