Learning to read good

This past month I've been tutoring a 19-year old boy who can't read. Johnney said he dropped out of school after Grade 8, sadly because his father refused to give him bus money anymore. Not only was I horrified that a parent could withhold education from a child like that, but I was shocked that he had even made it to that level without knowing how to read. How do so many teachers not notice? Or what kind of techniques does a student adopt to slip under the radar that long? Illiteracy is a scary thing that is becoming more and more common, or maybe I'm just becoming more aware of it. And it's not just in Grenada.

Well the good news is that Johnney can read. He's very limited, but he knows the alphabet and I'm teaching him phonics so he'll know the sounds for all the letters and can decipher new words himself. Many kids I've worked with use "sight recognition" to pick out words they already know, which is a great memorization skill, but also hinders them when they mistake any similar word for one that begins with the same letters. The great part about teaching adults though is that they already have a wider vocabulary than children, so you don't have to always explain the meaning of words. So with Johnney, once I teach him the rules of a sound, he can name examples of words that apply. He's a great student, patient and hard-working, and every session we have together is an encouragement to me to keep going. I've never taught adult literacy so this is a learning experience for me too. And I'm thankful to him for trusting me, as his teacher and confidante.