Draft Revision ?

“A-E-I-O-U are vowels, A-E-I-O-U are vowels, and sometimes Y.” That was the introduction to an old Hooked-On-Phonics recording. I can still hear the soft but clear spoken woman’s voice on the recording whenever I think back to my early days of learning to read. I absolutely hated it. I would have preferred to be with the other kids out in the sun, running around on green grass that was in serious need of mowing. Instead I was in our second living room sitting on a red, brown, and orange colored yarn-like shaggy carpet. Behind me was the brown upright grand piano my grandmother used to practice at night. She would often play me to sleep when my brothers and I were supposed to be in bed. She was a sweet short woman with frizzy gray hair and a nice smile. She smelled like roses and was often found in her garden attending to them. It was her fault I was in the living room with a plastic red and yellow tape player and flash cards instead of outside having fun. We already had learned the alphabet in school and I could slowly read sentences like “brown bear, brown bear what do you see?” Admittedly I had some of those sentences memorized thanks to the school teachers who read the stories in the classroom and had us fill out coloring pages from the same story.

            Like most kids my age at the time, I wasn’t excited about the idea of sitting in a room learning to read as opposed to being outside.  It’s not like I never got to go outside and play. In fact that was the majority of my free time. It was the idea of having to sit still for at least 15 min each day to read. Not an easy task for a young child. I remember the timer. My grandmother bought a kitchen timer for the explicit purpose of making sure I practiced reading for 15 min. Often times I would pretend to be reading and would attempt to sneak off when she continued about her daily chores and was not paying attention. It was often a game for me to try and race back to the living room anytime I thought I heard her or if the timer was about to go off.  I wasn’t always fortunate to be able to sneak away at times when her chores involved the same space I had to be reading in. Fifteen minutes is a VERY long time when you’re 5 years old.

My grandmother was the type of person to use any opportunity to teach me something new.  I recall a memory of me as a young child playing outside when she called me over to her roses in the garden that run alongside the house.  They were beautiful pink roses, most of which were already in full bloom and with a sweet scent that surrounded them.  She pointed to one rose and as she attempted to hold back the petals of the not yet fully bloomed flower while holding pruning shearers in her hands. Holding the petals back so I can see she asked “Do you see that?” Inside the flower, falling further into the rose bloom was a small insect with tiny furry legs and black and yellow stripes along its back. “That,” she continued, “is a bee. They help the plants grow in the garden.” That was my first time seeing a bee. I remember very distinctly that memory and it was a good example of the type of person my grandmother was. She helped me to look at the world in a fun and interactive way and often encouraged me to try new things and was always encouraging. She often did not have to make much effort in gaining my attention. 

It was her desire to help me learn and teach about the things around me that inspired the sense of wonder that fueled my imagination and enthusiasm. I was usually willing to volunteer and try new things in class as a result. I was just as excited to see what the teachers may have demonstrated as I was whenever my grandmother called me over to show me something. In later years when it came to reading a passage in class I was always willing to volunteer to read aloud. It became a fun challenge to read and speak the more complicated words and make them seem easy to pronounce. In the classroom setting I took very little awareness to how well the other students were able to read the passages. I was always eagerly awaiting the opportunity to read it myself. Those moments of reading were different than the moments of having to read using hooked on phonics.  In first place they were voluntary. I was never a fan of having to do something otherwise. Another reason they were different was because I was older.  When you are younger anything you are not initially interested in requiring your attention for more than a minute can seem unbearable. Even today most adults are not very keen on the idea of chores; a task of what has to be done as opposed to what we would like to do.

It was not until my junior year in English class that I realized how much of an advantage those early days of Hooked On Phonics had given me. I was inside a class room that had green, blue and gray dotted patterned carpets, and white walls littered with posters and quotes from famous authors and people in history. The class room had 30 desks attached to blue chairs for the students to sit in. All of these facing the front of the class room that had large white boards for the teacher to write any important information on. My English teacher at the time was a fair skinned, slender woman with blonde hair, pulled back into a pony tail. She was a very young teacher whom was in her early 30’s; if not the actual age of 30.  At this time all of the students were sitting at their desks with their books open to a passage written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The teacher had changed tactics that day. Instead of asking for volunteers to read the passage aloud she decided to pick students at random. The truth was she had the same students volunteering to read each day and wanted to get the other students more involved.

That day she picked a few people in my class who never volunteered to read a passage out loud. I remember one specific boy she picked. He was a husky guy with brown hair that was combed to the side. I remember the boy specifically because he seemed very uncomfortable. I had seen the boy in passing periods and other classes. He was usually a confident and humorous kid. It was in this incident I noticed how he seemed to have a hard time reading the passages. It was almost as if it was his first time reading.  I noticed it seemed to be a pattern among the students picked who never volunteered to read. They reminded me of myself when I was little. They didn’t enjoy reading and it seemed to be a chore for them. As I took real notice for the first time, I recalled the memories of Hooked On Phonics and the fifteen minute timer which I abhorred. I then realized how easily and often I read. I had no trouble understanding what was being said or how to pronounce what was written. I was able to understand unfamiliar words and terms through context in my readings. I took no notice at how an important skill it was within my daily life.  Yet there I was in the classroom watching myself again as a child by looking at these students reading and attempting to discuss and comprehend the passages we were examining in the classroom.

I’m not quite sure why I took extra notice in the classroom setting that day. It was like most other days to be honest. But for some reason it all seemed very familiar and reminded me of my early days of reading. I had later found out both my mother and grandfather had dyslexia. It turns out my grandmother’s deviation from teaching me through my natural curiosity and interest with the forced structure of a timer and flashcards had been to help make sure I never had the same kind of trouble in the class room I saw those other students have. I think now very fondly on those early memories of learning to read. I came to appreciate my ability much more in general when I wanted to know anything others around me had no understanding of.  It is because of my grandmother that I now realize the importance of learning to read. I never had to go through the struggles of failing to understand or comprehend because she had taught me to read. In essence she taught me my independence because I didn’t have to rely on the people around me for information because I could read. My path to literacy and my association with it have been one I didn’t always appreciate. I now understand how important it was. It is because of that literacy she nurtured within me that I am able to attend school and purse a higher education. A higher education which will help me to have the resources I need to have a good career. I will always appreciate now the value of those “unbearable” 15 minutes doing Hooked On Phonics.