Alferd Williams has been soaking up “all those things he had missed,” his teacher says

By Lauren Grasso

When Alferd Williams, 73, attends his first-grade class, he becomes a kid again. When the other students gather on the carpet in a circle, Williams does, too, and when they go to their spots for independent reading time, he goes to his spot, too.

When Williams struggles over a hard word, there is no judgment from the other students; they help him identify the word as they would any of their peers. Williams says they “open up to me just like I am a kid myself.”

Williams met first-grade teacher and International Reading Association member Alesia Hamilton in 2006 at Edison Elementary School in St. Joseph, Missouri. Now he attends her class every day from 7:30 a.m. to noon, and she is teaching him how to read.

“Way too big to learn”

Born in 1937 in Eudora, Arkansas, during the Great Depression, to Samuel and Lilly Williams, Alferd was the fourth of nine children. When he was 13, his father became ill, and Williams and his twin brother, Jesse, had to take over the family sharecropping business. By the time his father was healthy again, Williams was 15 years old and decided he was too far behind in school to catch up, that “he was way too big to learn.”

While walking his friend’s children to and from Edison Elementary, Williams first noticed Hamilton. He admired the way she interacted with her students (she refers to them all as “friends”) and he “knew that she was going to teach him to read.”

When Williams finally approached Hamilton and told her he did not know how to read, she recommended some local adult programs that might be able to help him; however, he had tried them before and they hadn’t worked. Williams asked her to teach him, saying “It’s the only way I’m going to learn how to read.” She hesitated at first, but ended up tutoring Williams in the library every day after summer school in 2006.

When he started, her approach was to figure out what he already knew, and as Hamilton recalls, “He knew all of five words.” At the end of the summer, Hamilton toyed with the idea of bringing Williams into her classroom so that he could “soak up all those things he had missed.” Hamilton got permission from the school, and in September, Williams became a first grader.

A staple and a role model

Now, Williams is a staple at Edison Elementary. In a Title 1 school where parent involvement often is lacking, Williams is a role model for the students; he describes himself as a “grandfather” to them. Hamilton says Williams is constantly reminding the other students how important it is to take learning seriously and to learn now while they’re young.

Hamilton has suggested to Williams the idea of moving on to another grade, but together they decided as long as he is still learning, he will stay in her class. Williams is currently reading at about a second-grade reading level, and while she says that she expects a lot of him, she does not want to overwhelm or frustrate him to the point where he’ll give up.

Williams’ favorite book is The Worst Day of My Life by Bill Cosby, which Hamilton says he carries around with him all the time and reads over and over. Williams also loves reading anything funny and anything about President Barack Obama.

Williams’ life has changed dramatically since going back to school. For instance, Hamilton was stunned one day when Williams came up to her and asked, “Did you know there are signs above the aisles in the supermarket that tell you what’s in each aisle?”

Williams plans to stay in Hamilton’s class until he gets to college. He says, “I promised myself and I have promised [Hamilton] that I am never going to get out of school. I love school and love the education and being able to help myself and do things by myself and read my own mail and go shopping and go wherever I want to go without asking where to go and how to get there. When I was a young man, I couldn’t do that.”

More than a twist of fate

Hamilton believes she and Williams were meant to find each other. She says that teaching him and helping to change his life have been rewarding and remind her why she has been a teacher all these years. Hamilton describes Williams as “the happiest guy on earth.”

Together, Williams and Hamilton have a dream of starting an intergenerational learning program where kids and adults can read and learn together. Hamilton wants everyone to learn as Williams did, in a fun and exciting way. He says he knows there are a lot more people out there who do not know how to read, and if they could start a program, maybe “we could have a lot more people doing what I’m doing.”

In the classroom, Williams participates in singing, dancing, and learning games along with the other students. If students come to Williams with a question or problem, he generally directs them to Hamilton, making it clear that he is there as a student—just like them.

Lauren Grasso, a senior at the University of Delaware, served as an editorial intern for Reading Today in Fall 2010.

Back to school: a first grader at heart (February/March). Reading Today 28(4), 20.