Shelagh Campbell hated school. It was bad enough that she was small, and shy, which made her an easy target for the elementary school bullies. But on top of that, she was stupid. Day after day of that first painful year in Grade 1, she listened in humiliated envy as other kids read out words, sentences, even whole paragraphs with ease, while she struggled to learn even the simplest phrases.

The teacher seemed to think she wasn't trying. But she was, as hard as she could. The words just didn't make any sense to her. Her classmates seemed to be able to understand the sounds they were supposed to make, but they were just meaningless squiggles of ink to her.

Worst of all were the times when Mrs. Ward loomed over her and corrected her with sharp irritation as she tried with hopeless desperation to guess at each word. Shelagh was afraid of Mrs. Ward. With her wide mouthful of strong, white teeth, the Grade one teacher looked just like the drawing of the Big Bad Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. Her eyes gleamed, too, just like in the drawing, when she became impatient with Shelagh's stammering efforts.

The school year lasted forever. When the end of June finally came, the terrific relief of it lasted only as long as it took for Shelagh to scuff her way home and timidly hand her report card to her mother.

"You failed Grade 1? Shelagh! How could you? That's ridiculous. Nobody fails Grade 1."

Shelagh shrank in her chair as her mother stared in disbelief at the damning piece of yellow paper.

"Look at this." Her mother stabbed a finger at the card. "Excellent in Art; Very Good in Arithmetic. But - Fail in Reading. Shelagh, these other marks prove you've got plenty of brains. There's no reason you can't learn to read. You just have to try harder."

Shelagh burst into tears and ran from the room.

When September came again, she went back to school with her heart in the soles of her shiny new Mary Jane shoes. It was mortifying to go back to the Grade 1 class while all her former classmates were laughing and chattering their way down the hall to Grade 2. She kept her eyes fixed on the tile floor to avoid their gazes. But she could still hear them whispering, the muffled snickers of laughter. Her face burned with the shame of it.

It was some small comfort that she wasn't in Mrs. Ward's classroom again. Miss Curran was younger than Mrs. Ward, with warm brown eyes and a smile that was just the right size. Shelagh liked her the moment she saw her. It hurt to know that Miss Curran would never like her back, once she realized what a dummy she was.

Sure enough, on the Friday of that first week, Miss Curran asked her to stay after school.

"Shelagh, I noticed that you are having trouble reading. I'd like to find out just why." Miss Curran gave her one of those wonderful smiles. "You're a very bright child, and I'm impressed with how hard you work at trying to learn. I think that if we had a better idea just what the problem is with your reading, we might be able to find ways to fix it."

Shelagh swallowed hard. "I - I'd like to learn to read. But I don't know if I ever can."

"I'm sure you can. It might mean you have to stay after school a few days to do some special homework with me. But I think we can beat this if we work at it together. Would you like that?"

Shelagh nodded eagerly.

"Good." Miss Curran's smile warmed. "I'll write a note to your parents and arrange a meeting with them. If they agree, we'll arrange for some tests and then get to work."

Looking back afterward, Shelagh thought of that time as her own private miracle. It was as though she had been battering herself in hopeless desperation against a solid brick wall, and was suddenly shown the door that would let her through.

It wasn't an instant cure, by any means. It took time to beat her dyslexia, and there were many days when she wept with frustration. But Miss Curran had endless patience and an inexhaustible creativity, making the tedious exercises interesting. Once her parents got over their first distressed reaction, they helped her at home as well. Gradually the door to reading opened, and the more it did, the more eagerly she worked to push it further. It was an enormous boost to her confidence when she passed easily into Grade 2, and moved on to new exercises with another teacher.

It was perhaps the best day of Shelagh's life when she ran home from school with her Grade 2 report card. She could read it herself now, every word of it. There was no problem at all in deciphering the "Very Good" neatly printed in the box marked "Reading".

That day, Shelagh decided she would be a teacher when she grew up. She never wavered from her decision through all the years to follow.

Shelagh graduated from Education in the Spring of 1981 and was lucky enough to get her dream job; teaching Grade 1 in the pleasant Ontario town of Milborough. That first year was a hectic one, and she thought ruefully that she was learning twice as much as she was teaching. One of her more challenging students was Michael Patterson, whose boundless creativity and rebellious streak did not make him an easy fit into the structured classroom setting.



Still, despite the occasional rough patch and moment of self-doubt, by the end of that first year she was confident that she had chosen the only career in the world for her. It was the best feeling in the world to see how much the children in her class had learned and to know that she could take some small credit for it. Even Michael had grown up to a remarkable degree. By the end of the year, his goofier behaviour was waning and he was showing signs of maturing into a good, responsible student.



Shelagh (Jensen) Campbell recently celebrated her fiftieth birthday. She married a fellow teacher in 1985 and took a few years off from teaching when their two sons and one daughter were small. Then went back to school. Her youngest son inherited her dyslexia, but with the early intervention she was able to provide, conquered it in elementary school and is on his way this fall to his first year of university.

Shelagh is still immersed in the world of education and enjoys the challenges of her work as a Resource Teacher in an elementary school in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She has become known throughout the province as the go-to expert for up-to-date knowledge on the diagnosis and treatment of all forms of dyslexia.

She still keeps in touch with Miss Curran. The older woman remains her hero, and one of her dearest friends.