Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Talking Books article

My name is Davis Graham. I have dyslexia which was diagnosed in 1967 at the University of Miami. I earned my BA degree in Psychology from the University of South Florida, class of 1985.

The road to my degree was not easy. I learned a lot about the battles with pride, how achievements come from hard work, and know today to accept dyslexia as a gift and not as a disability.

Today I am the Executive Director / CFO of Manatee Diagnostic Center, Ltd. and there is a program online which has changed my life. The program is called Readplease which I found on the Internet after receiving a contract which was 30 pages and needed to be read within 24 hours. The contract inspired me to ask the Lord for some guidance and I went to Google.com and typed in Text reading software, number two on the list was readplease.com, and in quotes was “free download”, I had the contract read in 1 hour and have not hesitated to read since.

About one and half years later I bought Readplease 2003 Plus and continue to use Readplease to read the Bible, daily devotions, contracts, reading for pleasure, reading email, trade articles, Smithsonian magazine, and then proof read my letters and e-mail. It literally has changed my life.

After contacting Pat Schubert via e-mail at Talking Books which I used quite often, she gave me a library of electronic books, and for the first time I’m reading Melville’s Moby Dick, next will be Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, then on to Robinson Crusoe. When reading with Readplease, I read between 300 words per minute to close to 500 words per minute. The ability to listen at such a high rate came from my experience in college when I would receive my text books on tape while following along in the text book. I received the text books through the Learning Disability Programs I was enrolled in during college. The books would come from Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic and sometime the school would have them read from students who were studying the same course I was taking. My ability to comprehend has come from the years of listening to books on tape with the variable speed play back records which RFBD and Talking Books so generously provide.

It is my hope somebody is out there who can use my story to inspire them to reconsider reading as an adventure. It is quite the experience to hear the words of Melville roll into an image which paints a picture of life on the sea. My life of reading has been renewed and I hope your view of reading is changed, for it is a gift from our Creator.
Sincerely,
Reading on, Davis Graham

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