I have made my living with words. They have carried me through newsrooms, TV scripts, deadlines, notebooks and long days at the keyboard. Reading has always been so familiar that I rarely think about it. Street signs, grocery lists, text messages, headlines. Words arrive effortlessly, and I move through them unaware of the privilege of reading. If you learned to read as a child, it can be hard to imagine what life feels like without that skill.
But for adults who never learned to read, words can be barriers, quiet sources of shame. Some of those adults find their way to one of Wisconsin’s most essential institutions, Literacy Services of Wisconsin. With nine locations statewide, LSW serves more than 1,200 adult learners each year and has tutored in excess of 30,000 adults since opening its doors nearly 60 years ago. LSW learning centers have quietly become places where second chances take shape, one word at a time, and where patience and determination meet every day.
The main LSW learning center resides in Milwaukee’s Brewers Hill neighborhood. I went there to understand what it means to learn to read as an adult. I wanted to listen.
I entered a capacious conference room, wall-mounted desks topped with laptop computers almost like ornaments for learning. Then came the two people who would guide me into that world: Tiffany Mosby, a 41-year-old student who had spent four years learning to read, and Bianca Ortiz-Johnson, a 40-year-old teacher who helps make reading possible for so many adults. Tiffany carrying the courage to begin. Bianca offering time and patience.
The Student: Tiffany Mosby
Photo by Tom Jenz
Tiffany Mosby
Tiffany Mosby
Tell me about your background, your childhood, your neighborhoods and the schools you attended.
I was born in 1984. I was raised by my mother, a single mom. We lived in various places on the East Side, Sixth and Burleigh, 16th and Center, and I was conceived on Fourth and Center (laughing). We moved every three or four years. When I was 16, my mother moved into public housing near downtown.
Where did you go to school?
I went to Jackie Robinson Middle School and then to Bay View High School, and I dropped out of Bay View my senior year.
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Were you able to read at all during your school years?
No. I went with the flow. I had a high school English teacher who knew I had trouble with reading, so she just let me be. I don’t know how I got by, but I got by. Some of my friends knew I couldn’t read, but they let it go. I wasn’t a problem child in school. I was quiet. If it was my turn to read in a class, I’d put my head down or I’d go to the bathroom. Going back, I flunked first grade, and I flunked third grade, and had to repeat those grades. From then on, I made up my mind to not flunk again. But by the time I was a senior in high school, I was 19, older than my classmates. I did play sports, tennis and basketball. I liked history, but I couldn’t read. Then, I got into ROTC, which I liked because I learned a lot of history. Anyway, when I was 16, I took a job as a cashier at Value Village drug store.
Was it hard for you in high school because you could not read?
In courses like English, history, math—reading applies to everything. That was hard for me. (pausing) Wait a second, I’m gonna cry. Why am I crying?
That’s OK. Take your time. (pausing for a while) You had to be lonely back then.
(Recovering). I wore a disguise. I did not let my friends know what I was struggling with.
You kind of carried that disguise around with you, right?
I still do. I beat myself up a lot.
When did you leave high school?
In 2003 when I was a senior. I was 19, two years older than my classmates. After I dropped out of high school, I was working, Monday through Friday. Every August for three years, I told myself I’d get my GED high school degree, but I didn’t. I ended up moving to Arkansas, got a good paying job, but Arkansas didn’t last long. I came back to Milwaukee and moved in with my mom. I worked at the downtown Sub restaurant, Quiznos, then they transferred me to Starbucks at the airport. I worked at Starbucks for three years, and that is when I went back to school and earned my high school GED in 2009 from the Milwaukee Area Technical Institute (MATC). It took a year to complete the GED while I was working full time. I was 25.
Did you have children at that point?
After I finished my high school degree, I was pregnant with my daughter, who is now 15 years old. A few years later, when I was about 28, I stopped into Literacy Services when it was located in downtown. I signed up for the reading program, and I met Bianca Johnson-Ortiz, who became one of my tutors. I had some fantastic tutors.
Are many of these volunteer tutors retired teachers and so on?
I think so.
How has the reading program at Literacy Services affected your life?
It affected both my daughter’s and my own life because she was learning how to read as a child in school. Me and her would read together.
What is the process of learning to read as an adult? How do you go about it?
They tested me to see where I was at in reading skills. First, we learn our short and long vowels, compound words, nonsense words, the sounds of words. We’d be given letters on cards, and we put them together. The learning process took me about four years. Hour and a half classes twice a week.
After those years of being tutored, could you read well?
I could put words together. I could sound out words, speak, communicate, understand. Take the word, ‘honest.’ I struggled with that word because the H doesn’t sound out. You’d think it would be spelled out how it sounds. I couldn’t even read that word. When I filled out job applications, and it asked about how honest I am, I’d answer it wrong because I did not know the word. (laughing). I was probably not getting jobs because they thought I wasn’t honest.
Did learning to read change your life?
Oh, it changed my life a lot. Before that, I would complain a lot, about life, family, and work. Then, I had a second child, she is now 7 years old. In 2019, I enrolled in MATC and eventually earned an associate degree in business management in 2022. I got a job as the center coordinator at SOA, Serving Older Adults, and I worked under the director. I was there for three years.
What was the last book you read?
(Laughing) Someone told me you were gonna ask that question. I don’t read many books, but I read newspaper clippings on my cell phone. But I am interested in history. What I like is reading subtitles on YouTube documentaries in another language, for instance, recently I watched history shows on Ukraine and on Africa.
The Teacher: Bianca Johnson-Ortiz
Photo by Tom Jenz
Bianca Johnson-Ortiz
Bianca Johnson-Ortiz
Tell me about your background, growing up, parents, schools, and neighborhoods.
I grew up at different locations on the south side of Milwaukee. We moved around a lot. I was raised by a single mother who had to go back to school and earn her GED. She had dropped out of South Division High School to help raise her siblings and earn extra money for her family.
Where did you go to high school?
I went to Riverside on the east side. I commuted from the south side. Riverside is a great school. Mixed ethnic groups. I was in the Honors Program and graduated in 2004. It was a life changing experience for me because of the diversity of kids.
What about college?
I went to college at the University of Denver in Colorado, a private school.
That had to be a big change for you. From Milwaukee to Denver? How did that come about?
I wanted to leave Milwaukee and expand my horizons. At Denver, I took a lot of classes in history, English and political science. I ended up with a major in history.
How did you get interested in the field of literacy?
When I came back to Milwaukee, I worked different customer service jobs in the downtown area. I was also tutoring at the Milwaukee Public Library. Thirteen years ago, I started with Literacy Services as a volunteer tutor. I used the Wilson Reading System program that Tiffany later enrolled in. I still do. I taught Tiffany all the way through her learning process. After a year of tutoring, Literary Services hired me full time. Later, I became the manager of adult education programs at LSW.
Let’s go through the process of teaching an adult to read. What are the challenges?
The process starts with letter awareness, being able to identify all the letters in the alphabet. Next is teaching short vowel sounds and then later long vowel sounds. Consonants can be fixed, but students have to learn to understand the patterns that different consonants can make. These are the foundations of sounds. Then, we move onto syllable structure, of which there are six main structures in the English language. We intentionally teach through a very low progress. Remember, we are teaching phonics.
What is phonics?
Phonics covers the why behind reading. For instance, long and short vowel sounds. Take the word, “cat.” The “a” is a short vowel sound because the “t” behind it is closing in that vowel. As we teach each of these syllable structures, students do repeated structures so they can read them in their individual units, repeating words with flash cards to learn lists of words, in sentences and paragraphs. This method becomes ingrained in their reading process.
What is the general tutoring class schedule?
Two 60-90 minutes classes per week. Learning to read as an adult is a big commitment. Students are working with a method of learning how to read. It’s called the Wilson Reading System Method.
What is the Wilson Reading System Method, and how is it used at Literacy Services?
Wilson is a learn-to-read system based on phonics, and it provides all the resources you need to teach including lesson plans, word cards, books, and more. It breaks down complex language into manageable parts through sounds and syllable types. Wilson uses kinesthetic techniques like sound-tapping to build reading and spelling skills, progressing from simple to complex word construction.
What is the most challenging thing in teaching adults to read?
Managing the barriers outside of their tutoring sessions, namely their personal lives. Many deal with lack of money or transportation to get to classes. They have job schedules. Some have young children.
What is the difference between teaching an adult to read versus a child?
An adult mind is not as flexible. Adults have learned built-in patterns of reading such as memorizing words. We can study words in our courses, but if the student has read a word the same way for 15 years, there is an adjustment.
Is there a range of differences among adults who are learning to read?
Yes, some students cannot read the full alphabet. There are others who are high school graduates who have been able to memorize words, and they have about a 2nd or 3rd grade reading level.
What is the hardest part of teaching adults to read?
The lack of resources available for adult readers. In other words, adult level stories. Most stories are geared toward children. There is also my personal frustration that my adult students did not get an opportunity to read as a child.
