Adult literacy student William has three words to describe his tutor: kind, awesome, and friend. His tutor, Irene, counters with three words to describe William: intelligent, inquisitive, and diligent. William and Irene’s mutual respect for each other and mutual love of learning is the basis for a student-tutor partnership that is nine years strong! And they have no intention of stopping.
At 67, William is the patriarch of his family and spends a lot of time helping his daughter and many nieces and nephews keep their cars, plumbing, and household appliances running smoothly. He’s the guy they go to for advice or for a ride to an appointment. But meeting with Irene “is my time to learn more about words,” he says. “It’s just for me. It’s my time to myself. It’s a peaceful moment when I get away from everything else.”
A decade ago, William had no idea how words and sentences were structured. “I didn’t know about phonics. I didn’t know the spelling rules. I could fix anything with my hands, but I couldn’t read well. Now I understand syllables and how words are made. It’s helped my reading, and it’s helped my confidence. I just enjoy all the learning and knowing.”
William graduated from Asheville High School in 1977 and at 19 years old started working for PSNC Energy company as a pipe layer. Over the next 45 years, he earned other titles—pipe fitter, heavy equipment operator, technician—becoming the “everything man who could do whatever was needed.” However, company practices also changed during that time and William found he needed more literacy to keep up. He had to take safety procedure assessments on a computer. He had to read out loud from a manual during group meetings. “That troubled me,” he says. “I knew some of the words didn’t sound right, and I wanted to understand better.”
One evening William saw a public service announcement about Literacy Together’s opportunity for a 1:1 tutor and he decided to give it a try. When he was asked whether he preferred a male tutor or a female, he chose female because he’d grown up with lots of sisters and a single mom and he “figured a woman would be more patient.” Enter Irene, who patiently started at the very beginning: with individual letter sounds and one-syllable words, helping William to decode words instead of memorizing them.
Today Irene and William’s sessions are more like a weekly meditation practice than a strict lesson. They use the “Megawords” curriculum, but they also talk about “all kinds of esoteric things,” says Irene. “William had a blog for a little while, where he practiced writing about the Southside Community Garden he helped found. That was good spelling practice. We’ve talked about using the context of words to decipher their meanings, like ‘spiral’ and ‘sparrow,’ which sound similar, but mean completely different things. This week we talked about ‘pi’ and ‘pie’ and ended up doing some math.”
One result of building his vocabulary and decoding skills is that William notices language in the world that he didn’t see before: on signs, labels, television. Improving his reading has made him a more critical thinker and more curious about the ways people of different races and regions speak. “There’s no judgement on either side,” says Irene. “We talk openly about how we are different and similar, and we celebrate all of it.”
William has also gotten interested in how crossword puzzles require both trivia and word knowledge. He and Irene work the New York Times kids’ crossword puzzles in class. Like any good puzzler, William has become a learning addict, and it feeds his soul. “I don’t really have an end goal,” he says. “It’s a life for me, a life-long thing, and I’ll keep coming here as long as I can. I’ve found someone who is not just a tutor, but a friend.”