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With the help of tutors from the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council, a woman overcomes her obstacles one word at a time

Sunday, August 25, 2002

By Gretchen McKay

When Melanie Reid heads off to Harty Bible School in the Hill District on Sept. 3, a well-thumbed copy of the King James version of the Bible tucked into a worn leather briefcase won't be the only thing slightly frayed about the edges. Her nerves will be, too.

	Melanie Reid reads her worn leather copy of the King James version of the Bible in her Homewood home. Reid, who struggled with reading, sought help from the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council after enrolling in a program at the Harty Bible School in the Hill District. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette photos)

Yet the mere fact that Reid, 53 and a high school dropout, has returned for a third year of intense instruction in the Old Testament is nothing short of a triumph.

When she first enrolled two years ago, the Homewood resident could hardly read her mail, let alone something as challenging as the Book of Genesis. No matter how hard she paid attention in class or studied her notes, she never seemed to get it.

For a while, a neighbor worked with her on her reading, but then the neighbor's husband got sick and Reid was left to fend for herself. Her test scores at the Bible school (never higher than 35 percent) were demoralizing -- and embarrassing.

"I was beating myself up real bad," she recalls. "I knew I needed help, especially since it wasn't going to go away."

She turned to the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council in East Liberty, where a member of her church worked.

Granted, she has a long way to go. Eighteen months and two tutors later, she is still struggling to read books an average fourth-grader would breeze through in an afternoon. But her progress, measured in a series of small victories most literate people would take for granted, has been huge.

She can fill out a job application without asking for help. She isn't afraid to use a dictionary to look up the many words she can't pronounce or doesn't know. If she stumbles over a word during the Bible study class she leads at Allegheny County Jail twice a month, she doesn't fake it. Instead she pauses and tries again.

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With the help of her tutor, she has read her first book for pleasure in more than 20 years, "The Skin I'm In" by Sharon Flake. With the encouragement of the woman she cares for three days a week as a home health-care aide, she even has joined a book club.

Best of all, she is reading to her 11 grandchildren.

"It's coming," she says, with one of her frequent, easy smiles. "Sometimes not fast enough, but it's coming."

Her little secret

On March 29, 2001, Reid might have approached her first tutoring session filled with apprehension. Instead, she greets tutor Pam Hogan of Wilkinsburg with a kindergartner's unbridled optimism.

"I want to stop using this disability as a crutch," she announces with eyes as shiny as the tiny silver crosses dangling from her ears and throat. They meet at Wilkins House nursing home in Wilkinsburg, their agreed-upon spot.

After an opening prayer, much of the first hour is spent discussing how Reid ended up at Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. The answers aren't surprising.

Like many of the 3,000 functionally illiterate adults who arrive on the council's doorstep each year, Reid had a negative experience in school. From the get-go, she struggled with math and reading. Reid was held back in first grade at Arsenal Elementary and twice more in second grade.

"I remember crying a lot because I wasn't as smart as my sister," she says.

When the 10-year-old continued to have trouble in third grade, teachers informed her mother she was "retarded" and placed the youngster in a special-ed class where, Reid says, students whiled away the day making pot holders. By the time she reached Westinghouse High School, Reid had fallen so far behind she was simply going through the motions. Her classmates noticed.

As she walked down the hall one day, she recalls, she heard a boy whisper, "That Melanie Reid is a pretty girl, but her head's an empty box."

After that, her illiteracy became "my secret."

When she became pregnant with son Keith in 11th grade, Reid dropped out of school and went on welfare. She followed the advice of one of her younger sisters: "You better move close to me so I can read you your mail."

Reid, who had a second son four years later, eventually earned her GED in the late '70s, back when the test was easier than it is today, but just barely and after two tries. The single mother no longer dreamed of becoming a nurse, taking instead whatever low-paying job helped make ends meet: restaurant work, baby-sitting, cleaning.

While living in the St. Clair Village housing project in the mid-'80s, she saw an ad for a health-care aide. But there was hitch: She'd have to earn certification.

"So I studied and studied," she says. "But it was rough."

Even after she passed the test, she toiled with doctors' notes and medical symbols and had to rely on "special friends" for help.

"I'd call them up and spell things out, and they'd tell me what it said," she remembers.

It wasn't until more than a decade later, when she was flunking out Harty Bible School, that she mustered up the courage to address her illiteracy head-on. God, after all, had called her to the school. She couldn't fail him.

"But it's not an easy thing," she says, "to come to grips with all the hiding I've done."

Learning is a blessing

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On that first raw spring day with her tutor, the first activity is to create a list of goals using colored markers and pictures cut from magazines. While Reid's priority is to have a better understanding of the Bible -- that's life's "food" -- she also wants to understand recipes, develop computer skills and really, truly read a book, "like what you see on Oprah."

Hogan, a 33-year-old stay-at-home mom at the time, makes a list, too, to show that learning is a lifelong process, and tapes both posters to the wall.

The two of them examine Reid's tests from Harty, filled with misspelled words and grammatical errors, fragments, and, most tellingly, empty spaces.

"It's hard to learn from our failures, and it takes a lot of courage," Hogan encourages her.

She then assigns Reid her first homework in more than 30 years: to copy her goal sheet onto an index card.

Hogan, a class valedictorian at Westinghouse High School who read the dictionary for fun growing up, hadn't even been born when Reid dropped out of school. Still, the women feel an immediate connection because of their equally strong devotion to God.

Over the next several weeks, they hone a routine for the two-hour sessions. Every lesson includes spelling, reading comprehension, writing exercises and word identification; words Reid doesn't know are carefully printed on an index card and placed in a "word bank"; punctuation marks are read out loud so Reid learns to pause between sentences. They also spend a great deal of time on phonics, a method of teaching beginning readers to "sound out" difficult words by using the common sounds of letters in the word.

Hogan determines that her student's learning style is more auditory than visual, so she also reads words from various word groups -- short "e" sounds one day, long "e" sounds the next -- into a small tape recorder so Reid, usually dressed in color-coordinated sweats and matching baseball cap or beret, can play them back at home and hear the difference.

Melanie Reid approached her early meetings with tutor Pam Hogan with unbridled optimism. "I want to stop using this disability as a crutch."

By the second meeting, Hogan also decides they should keep a journal together in an effort to improve Reid's writing, which is at about second-grade level.

"Dear Melanie," Hogan writes on April 3, 2001, after Reid has baked her a sweet potato cheesecake. "Thank you so much. It made me feel very special. What sort of things make you feel special?"

"Dear Pam," Reid responds in careful cursive. "What make me feel special is when I can make someone els feel good. And I can bring a smile on there face or bring laugher to them. That make me happy. What a bless that is."

GPLC tutors are taught that adult learners stay in a reading program only when they feel that the lessons relate to their lives. So Hogan works hard to make lessons interesting and relevant. Vocabulary is spelled out with Scrabble pieces. Word families are printed with colored markers on flash cards. Reading passages are lifted from religious materials, such as the Joyce Meyer Ministries newsletter that Reid receives regularly.

There are flashes of promise. On April 26, Hogan recites "The First Book," a poem by Rita Dove, the nation's first black poet laureate (1993-95).

"Do you like it?" she asks.

"Very much."

"OK," Hogan pauses. "Now we're going to write a poem.

"Who, me? What am I supposed to write about?"

"How about you?"

"Me?" Reid whoops with laughter.

But Hogan gently urges her on. "Think about yourself and the things you like, such as the Scriptures," she says. "Or the things you don't like and want to change."

Reid sighs, clearly intimidated. But 10 minutes later, using the letters of her name as a starting point, she writes her first acrostic poem:

M - musical
E - eat
L - love
A - air
N - no
I - incredible
E -- every day is a good day.

When she reads it out loud, though, her brow crinkles in confusion.

"Poems are supposed to rhyme," she says.

"No, not always."

Reid frowns, then she reads the words again.

"So that's my poem," she says finally, as a proud smile creeps across her face. "I wrote a poem."

She shakes her head in disbelief.

Slow and unsteady

For the most part, though, Reid's progress is frustratingly slow. Phonics, in particular, prove a constant struggle, even when the same word sets are studied again and again.

"I feel like it should just be 'Whoosh,'" Reid complains one evening almost four months into the program, when she falters on cap and cape.

"Ca ... ca ... ca ... ca ... cappy?" she asks, almost in despair.

The hard truth is sinking in. There are no "Eureka!" moments when it comes to teaching an adult to read.

It doesn't help that their meeting space in a first-floor conference room at Wilkins House, though roomy and bright, is at times distracting. The mumble of "Evening Edition" bleeds through a glass French door, and many nights, calls from a bingo game echo down the hall.

If she were in elementary school today, Reid probably wouldn't fall through the cracks. Today's screening tests are better at identifying learning disabilities, including problems with reading. But back in the late '50s, that wasn't the case.

Not only that, but Reid grew up among nonreaders, in a household completely empty of books, save for the Bible. Current research holds that children do not wait until they start school to begin to learn to read and write. Rather, the groundwork is laid from birth, at home and in their community, as they watch others using print.

During one particularly trying session in late June of last year, Reid recalls the lengths she went to "pass" as a reader. When her children were little, a friend wrote a different letter for her to use for every situation that might pop up for her children at school -- doctor's appointment, illness, need for early dismissal. She also kept a piece of paper with information needed for job applications folded in her wallet. If she had to find an address on her own, she'd set out extra early, even if it meant sitting in a lobby for a half-hour.

Well done

Maybe it's the heat, but by mid-July of last year, Reid's twice-weekly sessions are dragging.

"Oh, OK," she moans when Hogan suggests they start off with phonics, while both are feeling "fresh."

Having to repeat her first year at Harty, in particular, weighs heavily on her shoulders.

"God is testing me, and it doesn't feel good," she says, tearing up

Reid, though, has seen dark times before. Four years ago, her youngest son, Jonah, a boxing promoter, was shot in the back during a robbery and paralyzed from the waist down; soon after, she underwent open heart surgery. But not being able to sit down in a cozy chair and read a book as just about everyone can, well, that's "real hard."

Hogan, with whom Reid has developed a comfortable relationship, isn't about to give up. When Reid struggles with a word, she's reminded to close her eyes and "pull the letters out."

Last August, anxiety builds over GPLC's upcoming "post test," administered after 50 hours of instruction. But Hogan reminds her it's nothing she can fail.

One bright spot is Harty. Reid has signed up for another year, certain she'll ace it this time around.

"All I have to do is study my old tests," she says. "We're gonna see something good."

GPLC volunteers are asked to make at least a six-month commitment, but when Hogan becomes ill at the end of August 2001, she is forced to quit. So Reid is paired with Mary Conway of Point Breeze, a 27-year-old research assistant at Pitt who started volunteering for the council in 1998.

Their first meeting, just two days after Sept. 11, is spent getting acquainted and re-establishing Reid's goals. Both are nervous, but the ice breaks when neither can pronounce the word "Mephisbosheth" in Joyce Meyer's newsletter.

In light of Reid's renewed commitment to school ("I can't preach the Word if I don't know the word," she says), the women decide their work should focus around the Book of Genesis. Conway records the answers to old test questions on a tape, writes the answers on a large flash card, and devotes time each week to reading from the Bible.

"This is very important to me," Reid confides. "It's now or never."

"Last year's over, Mel," Conway responds. "Don't even think about it."

Along with the dreaded phonics and workbook exercises, Conway adds fun to the mix: reading Flake's "The Skin I'm In" out loud, line by line, a few pages at a time.

In early October, the first sign of tangible progress emerges. Reid scores 67 percent on her first exam at Bible school, 50 points higher than the previous time.

"The teacher whispered, 'I'm so proud of you,'" she tells Conway with a grin. "I told her, 'I'm so proud of me, too.'"

She does equally well on her 50-hour test four weeks later in GPLC's East Liberty office, improving by two reading levels, to almost a fifth-grade level.

Before the hourlong exam, she explains to area coordinator Alex Dow how tutoring differs from her childhood school experience. No longer embarrassed by her inability to read, "I hunger for it more now," she says, "and I know it's important.

"But it's still hard," she adds. "But if I keep doing it, maybe it won't come as hard."

Cause for celebration

Reid has worked a full day by the time she arrives at the county jail on Dec. 10 to teach her Bible class. After a group prayer with 15 other volunteers from area churches, though, she emerges refreshed. By the time she arrives in a stark cement interview room in Pod 1B and greets the three male prisoners, she's almost glowing.

"Father God, give us a fresh anointing this evening," she prays, oblivious to the blare of a TV in the main room and the stares from the other prisoners milling about.

The students engage in a spirited discussion of Genesis, Chapter 6, the story of Noah. Despite the strain of their surroundings, they share an easy camaraderie; when Reid has trouble finding a certain verse, one teasingly calls her "pokey." When she stumbles over a passage, another of the prisoners, clad in scrubs, helps her sound the word out.

But the group also talks about faith in times of trouble and the unknown. Reid offers up her work with GPLC as an example.

"I often ask God why my life was so tormented and why I couldn't have become a doctor or teacher," she confesses, as the men nod in sympathy. "But he tells me, if I had been any other way, I couldn't use you in the way I do now."

That faith comes in handy Jan. 31, when Reid scores only 65 percent on her third exam at Harty. Her disappointment is palpable. Perhaps she raced through the test too quickly. Or maybe she and Conway didn't meet enough. Conway, diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma the previous July, was in the midst of chemotherapy and had the energy to tutor just once a week.

Or was it nerves?

"I thought I had it," she says, "but when I got there ... it just slipped away."

"Everything's for a reason," Conway tells her. "You can't give up." They quickly get back on point by spending the next half-hour filling out a disability insurance form.

A month later, the always-punctual Reid arrives 10 minutes late, on the verge of tears. Her boyfriend, Mac, hadn't wanted to drive her to class.

"He didn't see the point," she says.

By early March of this year, those setbacks are forgotten.

"Here, teacher," Reid crows as she walks in the room, tossing Conway a folded-up exam: 75 percent.

Conway also has cause for celebration; she'd had her last cancer treatment the day before. "And I couldn't feel upbeat until that was done."

	Mary Conway, left, a tutor with the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council, helps Melanie Reid during a session at the Wilkins House in March. "Everything's for a reason," Conway tells her. "You can't give up."

Over the next two months, the pair continues with flashcards, vocabulary, phonics and studying the answers to old tests. To be promoted to the second year of the program at Harty, Reid must earn nearly perfect scores on the rest of her tests. But no matter how difficult the session, they always close on a positive note, with Flake's novel.

"Dear Mary," Reid writes in her journal on May 29. "This is the last day of school for me. I am hoping I go onto the next level. Two years of Genesis has be so good it was hard but a good hard. I thank you for being there for me and helping to get were I need to be."

The next chapter

On May 30, Reid gets the news she's been waiting a year to hear. The 85 percent she got on her final exam pushed her average to 77 percent. She'll be studying the Book of Exodus come September.

"It's just amazing what you did," Conway says, her smile almost as large as Reid's. "This is not easy stuff."

"Serving God isn't easy," her student answers.

Conway laughs. Reid isn't the only one who spent the last nine months with her nose in the Bible. "I should get an honorary degree when you graduate."

Because of vacations and work schedules, the two meet only sporadically over the next three months. But when they do get together, they plug away at Exodus.

In a way, Reid has already beaten the odds. Almost half of all adult literacy students drop out before the 50-hour test, the rest soon after. But Reid has stuck with it through 18 demanding months, and she's not looking to quit any time soon.

Her progress, she says, is nothing short of miraculous.

Not only does she find herself reading things she never even noticed before, she feels more confident and self assured. She also is reading the Bible better, and, as such, "I've got a holy boldness about me when I preach," she says.

As for that crib sheet she used to keep tucked in her wallet, well, she doesn't even know where it is.

"It's easier now," she says simply.

Gretchen McKay is free-lance writer from Ben Avon.