OAP Learns To Read For First Time By Following Grandsons Online School Classes
An OAP has learned to read for the first time after sitting in on her grandson’s school classes which moved online due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Marlene Hinckel, 63, who lives in the municipality of Florianopolis in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, learned to read her very first words last year.
She accomplished the feat while her daughter and grandson, aged 7, paid daily visits to her home, where she lives alone, to keep her company.
During the visits, she sat in on and closely followed her grandson’s school classes, which had moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She told news site G1: “I was enthused by the idea of learning, too, and I started to sit in on the classes and used his school books to try to read…
“I can now read song lyrics and Biblical verses used in the family’s daily service. For me, that is already a big step.”
Hinckel had long been wanting to learn to read, and had even enrolled in an adult education programme in 2019.
Despite enjoying the in-person classes and gaining a passion for studying, she failed to gain literacy, and struggled further when the classes moved online after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hinckel, who originally hails from the nearby municipality of Bom Retiro, had not learned to read as a youngster, as her parents had obliged her to work with them in the fields until she was 25.
She told G1: “There was no school close to our house, we had to walk for hours until we reached the only school, but my parents did not think it was important to study and preferred to keep their children working on the plantation.
“I got married young and got pregnant shortly after. Due to a lack of direction, I had three children in a row, which prevented me from studying at the time. But it was when my children started going to school that I missed my studies even more, because I could not even help them.”
Hinckel revealed that not knowing how to read made everyday tasks, such as doing a supermarket shop, difficult.
However, she is now making flying progress and hopes to return to her in-person adult education classes after getting vaccinated against COVID-19, now that her grandson, Eduardo, is back in school.
She revealed her next task is to learn how to write. She told G1: “I am already trying.
