By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Volunteering as a literacy tutor challenges even former teachers when reading must be taught "from scratch" to an adult – but it made Barbara Groner's time with "Billy," 59, all the more rewarding.
A year and a half ago at a Junior Arts Club meeting, Groner heard Karen Pugh remark that she was working part-time at Pathfinder, the Dowagiac Union Schools alternative and adult education program for people earning their diplomas or GED.
"She observed that the biggest problem students had was poor reading skills. She said, 'We really could use the help of some tutors who would be willing to work with our alternative and adult ed students on reading skills.' I listened and I thought, 'Some of those ladies should do that.' A couple of weeks passed. I mulled it over and thought it couldn't be too hard. Professionally, I was a librarian and a school teacher. Maybe I'm passing the buck and it ought to be me, too," Groner decided.
When she finally showed up to speak with Director Larry Schmidt about tutoring, "The red carpet came out," Groner recalled. "By the time I was done talking about my background with him and (the late) Russ Bergemann, they had just the person for me to work with. I didn't know anything about him, but he's become a very good friend."
Billy's motivation for learning to read so late in life was two-fold. He felt like his employer cheated him out of vacation time and he wanted to be able to comparison shop in the grocery store when he cashed in bottles he collected.
"I thought, 'No, that wasn't the intention of your bosses.' What happened was you get your paycheck and there's a message in it that says, 'You need to use your vacation time or you're going to lose it.' But nobody verbalized it to him, so he lost it. He thinks that's cheating. But he didn't let his boss know he doesn't read because that's a secret. You get cheated in life if you don't know how to read."
Groner's first glitch was that Pathfinder was not equipped with learning-to-read materials.
Theirs were geared for individuals advancing from one point to another.
"I knew how to take fourth graders to fifth grade level or how to help kids having trouble reading" she said. "I can motivate anybody to want to learn more, but how do you learn to read? I'm not a kindergarten teacher or a first grade teacher – the people who teach you to read. It's a real talent."
"I honestly do not remember learning how to read," Groner admitted to her fellow Dowagiac Rotarians Thursday noon at Elks Lodge 889 for a March Reading Month program. "I can remember my mother reading to us – not so much to me, but I have brothers and sisters eight, 10 and 12 years younger than I am. I can remember her reading to them on the sofa before they went to bed at night. I would ask, 'How can she be falling asleep reading aloud?' I found out about that when I became a mother."
Groner's next stop was Berrien Springs at Andrews University's reading resource lab.
The more she was questioned, the more self-doubt she felt.
Had Billy's hearing hindered his learning? Was his IQ a factor? Was he dyslexic?
"Those are things to consider when you're going to teach somebody to read," she recognized, but she hadn't yet met her student.
Assessing where she stood based on her experience teaching fifth grade, Groner decided, "You need to know your alphabet to learn to read. I've used lots of vocabulary cards. They can be a tool. The order of letters is important if you want to use the phone book or the dictionary. Computers really help out those of us who are not great spellers. Does 'fish' start with 'f' or 'ph?' "
"I knew when I started teaching someone to read from the beginning, I couldn't do it without also working on writing skills. It's like the hand is connected to the brain," Groner said, "and when you're writing it, you're practicing. You need to have a reason to learn to read because you want to be able to write, too. I brought a certain amount of knowledge to this endeavor."
A time was arranged to meet Billy, "a great guy and the oldest of nine children of non-reading parents. We got to know each other well over the next few months and we shared family stories. How had he not learned to read? His mom and dad didn't read. It wasn't important to them. His dad got his paycheck, went to the bank and put his thumbprint or an X on it and they gave him his money. The father didn't need (literacy) for his job."
Billy's family also moved a lot. "He was in lots of different schools, which is tough on kids," she said. "Every school is in a different place and every teacher handles everything a bit differently. Early on, he started hiding the fact, rather than saying to the teacher, 'I'm not where you are. Can you help me?' rather than admit he didn't know what the other kids knew."
After repeating three grades, by eighth grade the 16-year-old was larger than his classmates. "They sat him in the back of the room. This is a sad story. The teacher said to him, 'Billy, you need to quit school and get a job.' As the oldest of nine, I'm sure his mom kept him home from school some days to help with the other kids. His attendance wasn't great."
"Those are the kinds of things as a tutor you need to realize," Groner said. "The more I work with people at adult ed, I realize do not bring your own preconceived ideas to what something's going to be like."
Groner contacted Lewis Cass Intermediate School in her quest to obtain teaching materials. The LCISD in Cassopolis referred her to one of its special education teachers in Marcellus who loaned her materials which instructed by matching pictures to phrases, then sentences.
Renee Crandall at McLauchlin-Clark Funeral Home mentioned that she still had the Hooked on Phonics her son Daniel used in seventh grade.
"It's a wonderful system," Groner said. "We were meeting about two hours at a time. Andrews University said if you're going to work with someone as a tutor, you need to commit to meeting with them at least three times a week. You can't do it one or two times and expect them to advance. Three times a week for a minimum of 90 minutes."
No problem, since time flew by until three hours passed.
"The thing that was the neatest," she said, "was the several times Billy looked at me and said, 'Barbara – and that was a big step, calling me by my first name instead of Mrs. Groner – you really like doing this"
In three months, Billy improved from "pre-primer" to almost third-grade reading ability.
"He was excited and I was excited," she said. "He said, 'I can read the signs at the side of the road.' We're not excited about reading billboards, but he is. He had also wanted to be able to read sale signs in store windows. He supplements his income by collecting cans and turning them in for the 10 cents people threw away. He's beautifying our town, but he can't read what's in the store windows to go in and buy.
"By the time we were done, he was able to look at fliers from three different grocery stores and figure out which he should buy pasta at this week. Living experiences we do automatically – and save money by comparison shopping – non-readers just have to pick what's on the shelf spend more for their groceries because they cannot comparison shop. It opened my eyes to what it meant to be a non-reader as an adult. I know I grew as much as Billy grew. It was exciting to see him get turned on."
Billy balked at only one assignment Groner gave him in their six months together.
"He didn't tell me no," she said, "but I could tell. I wanted him to write a note to somebody because he was able to do sentences. He said he didn't have anyone to write to. I told him to write to his sister in town. He didn't want to do that because she didn't know he didn't know how to read. He managed to keep (his illiteracy) private his entire adult life. He had a good job with perfect attendance at work for years, but he was finally at a point in his life where he had been laid off because they were downsizing and he had to go find a job. Try to find a job in this world today without a high school diploma or GED. You're in big trouble."
Thanks to their 10-hour tutoring weeks, "Billy's a reader now," Groner said. "He got a new job, moved away from the area, but told me when he left, 'I will finish learning to read,' " and wants her to see him accept his GED.
"We have a responsibility as the merchants and professional people in this town to find some time to share, whether it's in an elementary school classroom, through a church mentoring program or at adult ed. There's a place for you," Groner told her fellow Rotarians, who could volunteer more easily than she did.
She has attended workshops and amassed a stack of materials about teaching adults to read.
"I could have worried myself right out of wanting to do this," she said. "I would have been the loser. Teaching someone to read is a wonderful experience."