Page 52 - Senior Link Magazine Summer 2020- Online Magazine

THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

For Life: Maudene Deane

by Aleisha Utterback

“Of adults with the lowest literacy levels, 43% live in poverty, and 70% of adult
welfare recipients have low literacy levels. An excess of $230 billion a year in health
care costs is linked to low adult literacy.” “Nearly half of American adults have
difficulty understanding and using health information ... [which] increases the
likelihood that they’ll incur higher health costs.”

(www.proliteracy.org/Adult-Literacy-Facts) Statistics like these continue to plague the
United States, a country that is arguably the most advanced of any nation on earth. So,
why does something as dangerous as illiteracy continue to have a hold on our nation
in a way that every year costs billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and a bankrupted
quality of life?

audene Deane would say to their needs. However, when it
it is because they are not came to teaching students to read
Mtruly learning to read in well, one thing was certain: nothing
the first place. was working.

“I could lay all the parts to build a Maudene is deeply creative, so she
car out on a driveway, and lay out knew what she wanted and needed.
every tool you would ever need to However, as she dove into the
build it, but if you don’t know the available curriculum, it soon became
order and how everything works, clear that what she was looking
you will never build a car.” These for did not exist. She read a book
are the words used by Maudene to called Why Johnny Can’t Read, and
describe much of what is missing it impacted her decision to begin
in mainstream reading education. adapting materials to what she
In a system that relies on “sight knew would make reading come
words” and rote memorization in to life for her students. Eventually,
early reading education, there is a she developed her own materials,
critical component that is largely complete with her own original
missing and has been since the onset illustrations. What began in 1965
of modern education. For over 50 evolved into a method known as
years, she has been trying to change “Denney Reading” (her maiden
that paradigm. name, in honor of her parents),
and for the last 35 years, Lubbock
Maudene recalls the frustration has benefited from the fruits of her
of her early education career in labor.
Amarillo, Texas, where she began
her life of teaching in 1965. As the To date, the method has not only
mother of nine children (six at the taught up to a thousand children
onset of her career; three more to to read but has helped to overcome
come by 1975), she was no stranger dyslexia diagnoses, sub-par literacy

52 Lubbock Senior Link