The Dumb Kid Who Couldn’t Read.
By: Sree Jaya
Tags: Reading, Students, Kids, Teachers, Learning

You may know me as a book nerd, but there was a time when I couldn’t put words together to read a sentence without someone else’s help. If you think I’m talking about the days when I was a baby, you’re so wrong XD.

I couldn’t read Malayalam until I was 9. And you’ll think “Kids don’t read at that age”. Apparently, an average kid learn to read their mother tongue by the age of 5. And here I was in third grade, still trying to figure out what the small drawings I’ve been copying down from the chalk board are (Yep, I was that dumb). The only thing I was good at (if at all) were math and numbers.

You’ll wonder how no-one noticed that a 3rd grader couldn’t read, or how she passed the lower grade exams without knowing how to read. You know how the hearing abilities are strong for a blind person to make up for their lack of vision? That’s how strong my byhearting skills were. Allow me to explain ; ).

We used to get Balarama and Kalikudukka both till I was 15 (I didn’t want to stop buying them, the stories were either repetitions or boring by then). We lived along with our grandparents until I was 9. So, every week my granny would read the stories from them for me. Similarly, in classroom our teacher would read the textbook before explaining the chapter to us.

There was this system in our school, after every chapter of language subject was completed, we had to read it to our parents and get the textbook signed by them for the next day. My mom being a language teacher, always made sure that I actually read the chapter before she’d sign the textbook. Now, you’ll be wondering how a kid who couldn’t read gets it signed. No, I’ve never forged my parents signature in my life (I told you, I was dumb).

Here’s what happens, the teacher would read the chapter out loud. Every other kid in the classroom would run their point finger through the lines the teacher read, while I would listen carefully to what she was reading. I would by heart every sentence she read from the textbook just by hearing it once. When someone asked me to read the textbook, like a sound recorder I would say out loud what I had byhearted from the teacher’s reading. If the someone asked to read the continuation of what someone else was reading, I would easily say the rest of the chapter by heart.

But after we moved to our new house, my granny wasn’t there to read me the stories from Balarama or Kalikudukka. But I still wanted to know the stories. So, one day I asked my mom to read the stories for me.

She was like “ Go read it yourself ”. Heartbreakingly I told her “ I can’t”.

“Huh? Why not?” She was confused.

“Because I can’t read” And I started crying.

My mom was in a riddle. She asked me how I read the stories or my textbooks before. And I had to confess about how every story until then was recorded in my head. She actually didn’t believe me. So I started saying one of my chapters from my Malayalam textbook, and she looked at the textbook if I was saying exactly what was written in the textbook. She was shocked 100% lol.

You might think I’m lying, but my Malayalam teachers till 3rd grade, my grandma, or my brother can confirm the story if you don’t believe me X’D. Oh god, if only I could by heart stuff like that now ugh!

Mom was mad at me for not telling her this sooner. From then on she’d sit with me everyday, she taught me how to read from scratch. It took a lot (and I mean a looot) of effort to teach me how to read and write Malayalam. By the end of my 4th grade academic year, I was one of the kids who could read Malayalam or English as fluently as the teacher.

From then on, I would wake up by 6 every Friday morning to race to the gate to get Balarama and Kalikudukka so I could read it before my brother did (We had this rule, whoever takes the newspaper first gets to read the magazines first).

You know the box that the washing machine comes in when we buy it? I had two huge “washing machine boxes” full of Balarama and Kalikudukka. Unfortunately, there’s “not enough space” in our house -_- , so I had to give them away to my little cousins 💔.

As I grew up, I started reading Amarchithrakadhas, Akbar and Birbal stories, fictions, fantasies, autobiographies, novels,etc. I would go to every book fair that ever took place at our school. I was the kid who bought books in a seperate sack because there were more books than my school bag could carry. I bought so many books that even the guy at the fair whom we paid the bill to was shocked everytime I got out of the Book fair. One time (when I was in 11th grade) my brother had to actually come to pick me up because I couldn’t carry the weight of my “Book fair sack” alone.

Anyway, I’m very thankful that my mom not only taught me how to read, but also made me fall in love with reading.

Thank you Amma

Sreekumari T G ❤️