EBLI Supporter of the Week: Dan Corcoran

19Mar10

In June of 1999, Dan happened upon the newly opened Ounce of Prevention Reading Center at it’s first location in Flushing, MI.  When he first met Nora, he told her he would give her a million dollars on the spot if he had it in order to learn to read.  They came up with a better deal instead: he, a painter for the USPS at the time, would paint her new office in exchange for reading instruction.

His whole life Dan had struggled with reading, and only graduated from high school because he memorized information and got passed along.  He had held 35 different jobs before he met Nora; his inability to read affected  many areas of his life.  Though Dan had been through many reading programs, none of them were effective in helping him learn to read.  After about a month of  instruction with Nora, Dan stopped coming to his sessions because reality sank in; he felt he had ‘progressed enough’ and the work was getting more difficult .  But about 6 weeks after that he was back at OOPRC and finished several more reading sessions.  His reading had improved  to a high school level!

Dan’s motivation to learn to read came from being asked to do a reading at a wedding.  Though he had memorized the passage beforehand,  he still struggled to read it at the wedding.  After he worked with Nora, he was able read successfully.  He also went on to take courses with tests that required reading and writing.  Recently, Dan brought  his 6-year-old grandson to OOPRC for EBLI instruction.  Congratulations, Dan, your story is beautiful and you are truly an inspiration!

“We did some good old fashioned horse trading and I painted her center in exchange for some lessons in reading and spelling.  I was like a kid in a candy store.” – Dan

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