Once Upon a Time My Son Couldn't Read
Once Upon a Time there was a very bright boy who couldn’t read, even at the age of seven.
This saddened his parents very much. They were very concerned about their son who knew his letters at the age of two but couldn’t string three simple letters together five years later. They ran around the kingdom looking for answers. They consulted wizards and old women asking them why can’t our son read? What have we done wrong?
The hand-wringing could be heard throughout the castle. The frustration mounted, the anxiety swelled. Other little princes and princesses are reading his parents and grandparents moaned. His friend the Prince of Up the Street was in the middle of Harry Potter and still the little boy could not read.
They consulted his teachers who said he was at class level. But in their heart they knew that he was fooling them. His parents tried to gently teach him to read. But the fights and cursing that arose from those sessions disturbed everyone. “I hate reading!” would echo through their home.
When he began grade three his teacher stopped the mother in the hall and yelled at her for letting her young son fall behind.
Perhaps an evil spell had been cast on him? Eventually, they sent their young prince for an inquisition. The tests were administered and the inquisitor reported back: there is nothing wrong with your son! In fact, he is gifted in all realms. Perhaps he is just stubborn?
She also told them that it doesn’t matter when a child learns to read as long as they can read by the end of grade three. There are some special children who need to learn how to decode, they do not learn it through osmosis as was the going pedagogy.
The parents looked at each other and searched high and low who could take on their quirky prince. They found someone who sat for hours teaching their son the magic of letters and their sounds.
And suddenly, the fog lifted. Their son who had always loved being read to, grabbed the book from his father and started to read ahead while his dad was off on a quest.
And now the young prince is in love with books; he reads copiously and continuously. He flies through fiction as if by magic. The wise librarian at his school has taken him under her wing as an aide.
His parents are now becoming penniless from the expense of keeping up with him, especially when away from the library. They recently acquired a new magical e-reader that will aid them when they go on holiday.
Our young prince is now 10 and after finishing the Lord of the Rings recently, he noted that he can’t imagine a world without books.
And they lived Happily Ever After…
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