Adventures
in Reading
By Lorraine Mercer
I always did poorly in grade school in reading, spelling, and writing. Reading was a struggle for me, but I found that if I kept reading, it got easier to read. Then again, when I did not read for a period, reading again became a struggle.
My handwriting is terrible. If I my penmanship was legible, people would know I couldn’t spell. I once tried to type letters to my friends and family. I was so proud of myself for writing letters that people could read since people always complained about my handwriting. I got so much feedback from family and friends indicating that they had “no idea that I was such a bad speller” that I never made that mistake again. All following correspondence was in cursive. Cursive ended all complaints about my misspelling. Instead, people complained about my handwriting.
In kindergarten I got through by singing the alphabet song in my head until I got to the letter where the teacher was pointing. I could then respond with the correct letter. I did not understand how other kids would know the letter without taking time to recite the song in their heads. I memorized the pictures in the reader “David and Ann”. If the two children were climbing the ladder on a sliding board, I would recite “Up David up. Up Ann up.” If picture on the page was the children running, then I would respond with “See David run.See Ann run.” Of course, this method failed when I encountered textbooks that had few to no pictures.
Grade one used the same textbook as kindergarten. I knew school was going to be a breeze. I would have all the pictures memorized by the time I graduated high school. No big deal! What a shock, to see different textbooks in grade two with fewer pictures. My father worked every night with me pointing to the words and trying to help me read. I was very miserable in kindergarten and grade school. It was such a struggle. I was constantly shamed, physically punished, and held in detention for not knowing my letters, failing spelling, and poor penmanship.
At the end of the school year, I was so proud of myselfbecause my books were in such good condition. The textbooks looked almost new. Theinformation in the book was hard to read. Instead, I memorized the classlessons. Throughout grade school, my reading and spelling grades were poor, butmy comprehension, science, and math scores were top of the class.
I managed to get into nursing school in The GeneralHospital. My grades were not good, but I was one of the six out of 11 students who passed the General Curium High school (GCH) exams. In rural Newfoundland, a student must pass the GCH, a provincial standard exam, to demonstrate that they have mastered the grade level. Reading was still a struggle at the end of high school, and it is best that we don’t discuss spelling too much.
In nursing school, I almost flunked the second year, not because I did not know the material and apply the knowledge but because my writing and composition were so poor. The nursing director recognized that the spelling and writing issues did not reflect my true knowledge and intervened to help resolve the issue. The librarian worked with me for over 6 months.I read an article, wrote a summary of my reading, and took spelling test 5 days a week. The Director and the Librarian helped me stay in nursing school. I will always love these two ladies for saving me.
In my third and final year, student nurses worked as charge nurses under the supervision of a shift nursing supervisor. One evening, a Resident doctor on the Neurological Ward approached me and indicated that he had been reviewing my documentation in the patient charts. He proudly declared that I was dyslexic. I never heard of such a thing. I thought he was just hitting on me.[SL3] When I got off duty, I looked for dyslexia in the library reference. Dyslexia was a real thing. I was so happy to learn that there was a diagnosis, and I was not stupid as my grade teachers indicated. I never believed the teachers anyway. I knew I wasn’t stupid, but I could never understand why reading was so difficult for me and why I couldn’t spell. However, I couldn’t let the diagnosis stand in my way. I learned tricks to overcome the issue. I read something every night. The reading did not need to be a text, but I had to read every day. I developed tricks. For example, to correctly spell the number two,I would mentally spell the word ‘toe’. So, tow (as to pull something) was ‘t-o-w’. I would reverse the o and the w to spell the number two as ‘t-w-o’. My fellow nursing students also helped me by studying in groups. They would read test questions and I would select the correct response. This process saved me from reading all the textbooks and my written notes. I could read their written notes from class, but I had difficulty reading my own notes once the ink dried. I still can’t spell ‘their’ but thank God the word processor was available when I went back to university in my 30s to get a degree.
I got that degree, and I am now retired from a long career in Critical CareNursing and Clinical Research. I am proud of my career journey but really, ‘Did it have to be that hard?’
I am now an avid reader. I love books. I even enjoy the complicated dry Scientific Technology books. For my next adventure, I thought I would try writing. Take that! elementary and grade school teachers. You were wrong. I am not stupid after all.
