FOUR PATHS, Clarendon — With her sixth-grade daughter Jamelia Durant reading at grade four level, Raquel Davis was worried about how her child would do in the Primary Exit Profile examinations. Durant’s reading and comprehension skills were just not what they should be in order to get good results.

Then Davis saw a flyer, in a school chat group, touting the skills of a teacher who had a knack for helping people to read. She called and was shocked when the tutor, Meeks Campbell, warned her that there was something she should know: he was visually impaired.

A combination of curiosity and a desperate need to assist her child helped allay Davis’s initial hesitation.

“I know my daughter needed help in reading so I decided to contact him,” Davis told the Jamaica Observer. “But I didn’t know that he was visual impaired. So when I spoke to him on the phone and he told me I had so many questions. I just wanted to see how he did it.”

She journeyed with her daughter from their house in Four Paths, Clarendon to Campbell’s residence on Margaret Avenue in the parish. After three months her 12-year-old showed remarkable improvement, reading at the grade seven level. She aced her PEP exams and secured a place at Central High School in May Pen, Davis said.

“If it wasn’t for Mr Campbell classes my daughter wouldn’t pass the PEP. My daughter was reading fluently and her pronunciation was better in the space of three months,” the proud mom said. She is still in awe of the tutor.

Campbell is very familiar with this type of reaction. People are often intrigued when they hear of a blind man teaching the sighted to read, he said, and are even more amazed when they see him in action.

“People hear my students read and when they find out that is a blind man teach them everybody shock. Sometime people laugh when they hear about a blind teacher; but when them come and see how I’m good at what I do them mind change,” said Campbell. “I’m so good at this though, and I love that I can use my talent to change lives.”

He has been teaching others to read for eight years.

His world went dark in 2013. That’s when a cataract took his right eye. He had already lost his left eye during a mishap when he was a child. Losing his vision did not deter him from his love of teaching others to read.

A graduate of St Joseph’s College where he majored in advanced reading, Campbell was employed at several primary and private schools in Clarendon before COVID-19 upended the educational system. He now offers lessons face to face from his house or online.

He has devised his own system of teaching.

“I invented a colour-coded chart that I use to represent certain things. I put the consonants sounds in black, every letter that is silent in grey and vowels in blue, etc,” he said. “The first thing I do when I get a student is a diagnostic test where I ask them to sound the letter. This allows me to realise which letter they have the wrong sound for. I also write the letters on my board to see if they know them because I don’t teach someone to read before they know the symbol which represents the sound,” he said.

“I then ask my student to read a passage that a kindergarten student should be able to read and if they can’t, I know they are a non-starter and I bring them up from there,” Campbell added.

Davis, who said she was shocked by Campbell’s impressive penmanship skills, confessed that she also gained a lot while taking her daughter to classes.

“I learnt a lot because he was so good at what he did. When he writes on the broad I have to second guess to say is he really blind because he writes so perfect,” she told the Observer.

“I even end up recommending him to other persons,” she added

Campbell is not shy about proudly rattling off examples of some of the people — children and adults — whose lives he has changed by giving them the gift of literacy.

“I taught a 42-year-old dressmaker to read because when she get the orders from the school to tell her what to make she couldn’t read it. I even helped a man who wanted to get his driver’s licence and he got it. One day him see me on the road and say he will never forget me,” said Campbell.

One of his most memorable moments came when he was teaching a grade four class at Green Park Primary School in Clarendon.

“Simple words I put on the board the children couldn’t read and it touched me so I started to cry. Right there I got so passionate about [teaching] because I know the importance,” he said.

Campbell’s wish is to expand his reach to change more lives, but he can’t do it alone. He is hoping that someone will sponsor students to attend his classes.

“Right now is just some assistance me need from like a corporate company to sponsor the children and allow them to attend classes,” he said.

“Reading classes are needed here in Jamaica because you would be surprised how many children and adults can’t read right now,” he added.

Campbell may be contacted at (876) 473-9873.