Carousel Magic blossomed from a long arc of experience. The second milestone in the arc was my experience with adult literacy.
Romance Writers of America (RWA) is a strong supporter of literacy and sponsors many events at its conferences and around the country to raise money and awareness for the cause. While I was living in Michigan, RWA's efforts and some publicity from the local literacy council set in my heart an urge to become an adult tutor. During the whole process of contacting the council, arranging for training and getting my first assignment, I was excited and terrified. How would my meetings with students go? Could I really help? My first student met with me only once, and I was paired with a second. He was a young man, married with two young children. He worked
in industry, building machines and small structures for businesses. His goal? To read bedtime stories to his kids.
We worked together for three years. He grew from learning the alphabet to memorizing "sight" words and sounding out combination words. I learned that reading is a physical activity which depends on strong, exercised eye muscles and that punctuation is a language all its own. It took several weeks of concentrated effort for my student to "read" the punctuation of each sentence. He loved the play
The Phantom of the Opera, so I typed up his favorite lyrics in large font and helped him follow along to the music. At the end of three years, he had advanced to a 4th grade reading level and was enjoying bedtime stories with his children as well as reading blueprints with more confidence.
Together, in that literacy partnership, we made our own bit of magic.
Learn more about
Carousel Magic, Book 2 in the Pittsburgh Connections Series at my website -
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