Out Loud

In five weeks, the Institute will increase a child's reading words per minute from 50 to approximately 200. The child understands, with the help of their parents and teacher, their reading level. He chooses appropriate chapter books based on a teacher's evaluation.He begins to read with fluency, "sounding like you do when you speak." He reads with his classmates, speaking loudly at his teacher. He reads one-on-one to his teacher.

Each time the words sit in front of me, my cheeks flush. My eyes do not move from the page; I am invisible. Without eye contact I will not be called on. This theory worked until middle school. Each pupil read each day. Half way through the sentence, I remembered: They're staring at me. There are 20 kids in this room watching me read about a hippo at the dentist. The words got stuck between my teeth like shredded dental floss. I spit them out, backwards with missing letters--the syntax was destroyed, meaningless.

My mother knew I was no good. She knew how the words tangled before leaving my mouth. She was familiar with the pink in my cheeks that was really no indication of just how much they were burning. In my head, I read just fine. I turned each page at a normal rate, monitoring each reach for the corner and turn against my classmates'.

As a summer project, my mother started me reading Island of the Blue Dolphins. I wasn't opposed--it was a long standing rule that every day, you read 30 minutes. I loved this rule. I took as much as a could, and would have read for hours if I wasn't afraid that I should be doing something else--helping or asking to or taking initiative. This book would be different, she told me. I would read out loud. I remember one day of the project, the special edition hard cover version of the novel, complete with water colors, was before me on the kitchen table. I spoke in broken English, trudging through a page as one does when walking through quick sand--each step careful, a pause each time you feel a misstep.

We didn't make it through the whole book. I lied about the progress I made in my room, while my mother weeded the flowerbeds. Did you read about the sailors that found her? Did she use the whale bones yet? Yes, Mom, of course. I finished it today.

When Joe explained his teaching position for the summer, my memory flipped through the illustrations in Island of the Blue Dolphins. I thought of how each picture helped me lie, helped me avoid the tightened chest and flaming cheeks from speaking. I defended the children that only progressed to 96 wpm. Did we all have to read fluently in front of a crowd? Does this truly show their ability to understand all that they read? I wanted to hug the Low-Level Kids, the 0's and 0+'s that "aren't successful" with the passage read with their teacher.