Aro’s story: Learning to read at 10-years-old
It was February of 2024 when I first met Aro, then a 9-year-old deaf girl living in the village next to mine in rural Madagascar.
Taller than most girls her age with hair plaited into neat braids, I was immediately struck by her quiet demeanor as we sat eating lunch on a woven raffia mat in her family’s kitchen. Her little sister chattered, screamed and cried for attention before falling asleep in her mother’s lap; Aro finished her lunch without ever saying a word.
It took several visits before I first heard her speak. No longer a stranger to her or her family, she began talking when I was in the room and later, to my joy, directly to me.
I learned that the real Aro — who has moderately-severe hearing loss — is a clever, mischievous girl who loves to watch movies, play ball with her friends and steal my cell phone to take selfies.
Soon, after learning Aro could speak and hear a little, I began to search for organizations that might be able to provide her with a pair of hearing aids. Naively, I thought the devices would enable her to hear just like the other children in our community. With the help of hearing aids, Aro’s family and I hoped she would finally learn to read.
Even though Aro was in the third grade, she was still unable to read simple words or complete basic addition problems. Her grades in other activity-based exercises had been high enough to warrant passing her each year, despite lacking these crucial fundamental skills.
In October, Aro’s family and I travelled 11 hours north to Antsirabe from our rural village near Ambalavao to attend a charity hearing aid distribution program. We dreamed of a future where Aro not only copied her teacher’s words from the blackboard, but understood them, too.
Aro was the first of more than 100 children to receive hearing aids provided by the French hearing aid retailer VivaSon. There, at the Alliance du Français, her mom watched children communicate with sign language and spoke with the parents of other deaf children for the first time.
Later, we sat around Aro in anticipation as the receivers were attached to the custom-made earmolds and placed in her ears.
And that’s when I learned a hard lesson in disappointment. Because even though we know Aro can hear, even if only a little, she showed no reaction to the hearing tests conducted by the program staff.
There was no blink when they clapped their hands behind her head, no show of recognition when they shouted her name. She had received a pair of quality German-made hearing aids with a retail value of more than $3,000, and it seemed to have made little difference.
I held back tears of disappointment as teachers from the nearby deaf school brought Aro’s parents outside to discuss the reality of Aro’s situation.
Normal school won’t cut it, they said. In order to be successful — to learn how to read, to do math and to communicate — Aro needs to attend a school specializing in deaf education.
We had talked about the option before, Aro’s parents and I. But the idea of sending their daughter to a boarding school three hours away was a difficult, almost unthinkable, proposition for her family.
On our way home from Antsirabe, Aro’s mom and I visited The Fianarantsoa School for the Deaf (SEMAFI) and met with the school director. During our conversation, I learned that the now 10-year-old girl had never slept without her family curled up beside her. If Aro were to attend, her mother asked, who would she sleep with?
A couple months later in December, Aro’s family made the decision to send her to study at SEMAFI. Despite their hesitations, they recognized it was the best opportunity Aro had to receive an education. If she stayed at her previous school, we knew she was unlikely to ever graduate from fifth grade.
Aro’s family was able to enroll her at SEMAFI thanks to a group of people in the U.S. who agreed to sponsor her education costs. Without this financial support, Aro wouldn’t have been able to study at SEMAFI.
When the time came for Aro to move into the student dormitories in January, I worried she wouldn’t understand what was happening. As it turns out, Aro did understand, and she was excited for what was to come. As Aro said goodbye to her parents, she did so with a smile.
Aro made fast friends with the other kids at SEMAFI, and was quick to pick up Malagasy Sign Language. With individualized instruction in her preschool class and evening study periods, her education took off.
Back at home during Easter break in April, Aro’s mom and I sat riveted as Aro read from her notebook. After just three months of studying at SEMAFI, she had already learned to read and write basic sentences.
“The baby is crying,” she said in Malagasy. “Eight cows are dead. The dog is sick.”
It wasn’t fluent, not by any means. Her voice was halting with inexperience, and many of the words weren’t pronounced quite right. But we were amazed at how far she had come.
Just as exciting was Aro’s end-of-trimester exam results. She received full marks on nearly all of the exercises, earning the top spot in her class for the first time ever. Her mom beamed with pride when she told me.
And those hearing aids? As it turns out, they do help improve Aro’s hearing.
Using Malagasy Sign Language, Aro’s teacher and I were finally able to ask her about her hearing aids in a way she could understand. And for the first time, the answer was clear: Aro confirmed that the devices we had worked so hard to obtain indeed made it easier for her to hear.
Thanks to the teachers at SEMAFI, Aro’s family and I have high hopes for her future. Now, we have little doubt that she’ll not only graduate from elementary school, but move on to middle and high school, too.
This story was adapted from a column published in the Lewiston Sun Journal in November 2024.