[Nesabes] Adult Learner Featured on NPR

[Sandra Darling]

>From Marsha Tait:


Learning to Read After Decades Brings Joy

NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89743505

Volunteer tutor Michelle Miller (left) and her student, Joseph Buford,
told their story in Nashville, Tenn. 

StoryCorps

Questions or Comments? Write to Joseph Buford--Contact StoryCorps

StoryCorps: Recording America
Learning to Read After Decades Brings Joy

Morning Edition, April 18, 2008 * Joe Buford, 63, has a high school
diploma but kept a secret, even from his family: He couldn't read.  "I
could memorize things," he says. "I call it drawing the words ....
Nobody in my family really knew how bad it was with me and how hurt I
was over it." Buford's wife didn't know about his reading problem until
after they were married, he says.
"Some mail came one day and normally, she's telling me what came and
what [bills] needed to be paid. But this time, she gave it to me and
said, 'Here, read this.' And so she found out that I couldn't just read
something from top to bottom. That tore my heart out."
He worked in a construction equipment repair shop and was offered a desk
job. "I'd have to read books to look up parts and part numbe! rs,"
Buford says. He knew he couldn't do it.
"I would lay awake at night trying to figure out, how can I tell them I
didn't want the job." He told his employers he was "satisfied" with what
he was doing.
Before Buford had children, he worried that "what was wrong with me
would be passed on to my kids." He was afraid they wouldn't learn to
read. "It just broke my heart," he says. He was terrified of the
prospect of having to read to his young daughters. "So one day, I asked
both of them could they read? And they said, 'Yes. We can't remember
when we couldn't.' That just made me feel so happy that what was wrong
with me ... I didn't pass it on to them." After his children were
married, Buford decided he would try to learn how to read. He turned to
the Nashville Adult Literacy Center, where he worked with volunteer
Michelle Miller.
When Buford realized he could learn to read, he was so excited. "I
jumped up and ran through the house. It made me cry and I'm thinking, '!
Wow, it really is sinking in.'"
Produced for Morning Edition by Liz zie Jacobs. The senior producer for
StoryCorps is Michael Garofalo.

Jennifer Maloney, Director
National Coalition for Literacy
P. O. Box 11592
Washington, DC 20008
301-602-6358 (cell)
jennifer.maloney at ncldc.net
www.national-coalition-literacy.org

 

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