“Stephen starts to school this fall,” his mother said one day in a casual conversation with some other women.

“Do you know who his teacher will be?”

“Mrs. Headpole, I hear.”

Upon hearing the name, one of the women broke into a broad smile, clasped her hands to her breast and said “Wonderful, she’s the best. I’m sure he’ll like her.”

There were nods of approval from other ladies, some of whom had had kids in her class. Stephen’s mom crossed her legs and relaxed, pleased to hear the positive testimony. She had pause to be concerned as Stephen had always been a bit mischievous. For example, as a toddler he opened a door to the under-counter kitchen cabinets, entered with pots and pans flowing out behind him before he emerged from a second door sporting a big grin. And there was the time he pointed to the chubby butcher at the grocery store and said, “Look mom, a fat head.” Et cetera, et cetera.

Things seemed to go pretty well for Stephen in first grade. He may have had a little more challenge with discipline than others. Both his mother and his father raised their eyebrows the day he brought home a paper with his name atop spelled “NEHPETS”. It was always unclear whether the boy had temporary dyslexia or if he was playing a joke on his teacher. He never learned to write cursive in first grade as his parents had, only upper case printing.

He nevertheless was passed to second grade and, believe it or not, he had the same teacher that he had in first grade. He and a little buddy got into boy-trouble in class as before. Once after a distraction of the class by Stephen, his buddy was heard to say, “Thank God that wasn’t me.”

Stephen got satisfactory grade reports throughout second grade. Evidently grades “A, B, C, etc.” along with phonics had fallen over the cliff. He brought his “Dick and Jane” reading book home occasionally and demonstrated his reading prowess. He would open the book and say each word just as it was written with nary a mistake. By the end of the term he could read the whole book through, or open it to any page and read it without error. The book was well done with a colored picture on each page depicting Dick, Jane and dog Spot in various activities.

This kid was just too good. Mom’s brow raised and her mouth skewed to one side as she decided to test him. She covered the picture on a page and told him to read that page. He looked at the print for a pained moment and said, “Dick, uh ran, uh to ----uh, I forget the next word—” It became crystal clear that the child could read only pictures, even after two years with the “best”. His teacher should have warned the parents of his reading failure. Either she didn’t test him or she didn’t care. Stephen was obviously a bright boy with a logical mind. How else could he learn a text from just pictures? It evidently made more sense to memorize the words than to learn hundreds of words by the gaze and guess method.

“This will never do,” Mom said, “He can’t go into third grade if he can’t read, even if they pass him. Looks like he’ll be in school this summer.”

That’s exactly what happened. For six weeks he was tutored by Cal Workman, an expert reading teacher. At the end of the period Stephen could read at sixth grade level in spite of the “ best teacher”.