What? What?! How can that possibly be?! Do they not remember? Could they be too young to know? How could that show have possibly not had even a slight impact on their lives? It was huge to me!

This may come as a shock, but I had a hard time learning how to read and write. By second grade my reading and writing was still kindergarten level. I could recognize the letters, but little else.

And it was frustrating! I hated it! I hated being sat down in a group, constantly struggling as the other students got better and were moved to other groups with similar skill levels! It got so bad they eventually started moving me to a special ed classroom during reading and writing because they could not provide me with the individualized attention I needed.

But I wanted to read. Not because I was supposed to. It was resources like Reading Rainbow that made want to read; that showed me the stories I couldn’t read on my own. Then I could look at the book they showed and at least understood what was happening. I’d become invested. And that’s the most important part of learning something. Being interested in your work gives you drive.

And there was no click. I didn’t just get it. I was always a year or two behind. I struggled on through junior high, high school, college- I still can’t read advanced terminology out-loud. I learned through memorization. Stuff like medical journals? You could give me a solid minute and I’d still never figure out how to pronounce that stuff. But I can deconstruct the word and approximate the meaning. If I see it again, I’ll can separate it from similar words.

I can read. And write? From tenth on through college I got straight As in Composition, even as I struggled in other classes. I didn’t get corrections from teachers on my papers, I got notes in the margins. “I love this part!” “This is a great line!” But it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have something to get me started. Reading Rainbow was that something. And I’m not special. If it was that something to me, it was the same to others- can be the same to many more!