Teaching Someone to Read? Game-Changer!

When you teach someone to read you change their life in unimaginable ways.  Mary F. Pecci, M.A. selflessly dedicated her life to changing lives through literacy.  One day many years ago while teaching a seminar at the San Francisco Hyatt in the Embarcadero Center a participant defiantly told her that adult illiterates had "passed the point of learning".  She was infuriated and decided to find a few “illiterate” adults to prove them wrong.  In her mind the best place to find an available and willing adult to learn reading was in maximum security San Quentin State Prison.  For the next year she diligently taught two inmates to read. 

Here are a few excerpts from her soon to be released book A Rescue from Illiteracy (at San Quentin Prison) describing her incredible year: 

“Today I showed Clay how to write a check and check stub – which he enjoyed.  I was led to believe that one reason he had been carrying a gun the day of the shooting was to protect the money he was carrying to pay for a car.  He had to carry cash because he couldn’t read or write and, therefore, he couldn’t fill out a check.” 

“There was so much untapped potential there.  It was a crime to be totally at the mercy of others.  I was getting a glimpse of the darkened world of the illiterate, and it wasn’t hard to understand what it might drive a man to do.” 

“I reminded him that late bloomers like himself were always the best of the lot, giving the examples of Winston Churchill, who was not thought clever enough to go to university, and Albert Einstein, who was thought to be a slow learner and flunked math.  Clay responded that he was willing to accomplish less if it let up on the pain a bit now.  Then we both chuckled, so totally in touch were we with the agony and ecstasy along the coveted path to literacy.”  

In San Quentin Prison Mary used the same Uniform Decoding System and reading method found in her now famous At Last! A Reading Method for EVERY Child! books. After 50 years her method is still being used globally.  It is the easiest and most effective way to teach reading to any age level. 

Be a Game-Changer to someone today!