Kim clicked on a suitable link and handed Xavier the tablet. She showed him how to use the progress bar to move backwards and forward through the lesson. They watched in astonishment as his fingers flew along the line. The lessons whizzed past faster than they could interpret what was being shown.
‘Woah - steady up,’ said Joe, ‘you need to watch everything and take it in, to get the hang of this.’
‘You might, but I do not’ was the calm rejoinder.
Kim and Joe eyed one another. They hadn’t expected this. For the next hour Xavier’s concentration on the reading programme didn’t waiver for a second and he finished the course with a little sigh of appreciation.
‘Was that helpful?’ asked Kim.
‘I think it was.’
‘Let’s see how you’ve got on, shall we?’ She stood and looked along their bookshelves. She was looking for a volume with pages of clear text and wide margins. The best one seemed to be a travel book. Xavier opened the cover and flicked the edges of the pages as though looking for a lost bookmark.
Kim took the book gently from him and opened it at the first page. ‘We do it like this.’ She used her finger to trace along as she read the first few lines to him. ‘If you read like this, either aloud, or quietly in your head, you can understand and absorb the information the words are offering you.’
‘If I read like that, it would take me a very long time to read everything in this book, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, but that’s how it works for most people.’
‘I’ll try that with the next one but I’ve already read this one.’
‘What - all of it?’ Joe was incredulous.
‘Yes.’
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