Book reading opens chapter in hearing tests
Learning Center pre-schoolers enjoy story by children’s book author Erik X. Raj.
By Mark Guydish mguydish@timesleader.com
Education Reporter (Friday, November 2010)

DALLAS TWP. — The technical hearing test involved the usual headphones with a tone changing pitch until the tots signaled they heard it, but it was pretty clear they heard just fine once children’s book author Erik X. Raj read to the pre-schoolers Thursday at Adventures in Learning Center.

“The dolphin has a pink bed!” McKenna Heffron squealed with delight as Raj showed an illustration of Daytona Dolphin sitting in bed, calling his friend Lucas with a new idea on how to help the little fish fly.

“I wrote the story, so I could make the bed pink,” Raj, a 2008 graduate of Misericordia University’s speech language pathology program, told the children. “Some day you could write books,” he added, noting they could make things the way they want to in their stories.

A New Jersey native, Raj said he had come to Misericordia for his master’s degree because the school is a “heavy hitter” in speech language pathology, and after graduation he kept in touch with many of his professors. He landed a full-time job in his field, and found himself making up stories to entertain children while working with them – a knack that led to self-publishing “One Seashell, Two Seashell, Flap, Flap Flap,” a book that has garnered some acclaim.

He read to the pre-school crowd – ages 3 through 5 – Thursday at the center owned by Lori Russell and run in the Mercy Center Nursing Facility on the university campus. Russell said she gets a lot of help from the university students, with the speech language pathologists-to-be offering free hearing and speech tests annually.

As Raj read the story about a fish trying to fly with seashells as wings, the children grinned and laughed with each development and setback. Lucas – the finned swimmer yearning to sprout wings – ultimately succeeds (sort of) when Daytona propels him in the air and a friendly seagull nabs him in his bill, letting him soar above the sea for a spell.

“I hope this plants the seeds,” Raj said of his reading. “If they want to write, they see that they can.”

When he asked the tykes what they wanted to be, Nathan Heffron answered, “My dad!” Jack Herron chirped in “A writer!”

Ah, another seed planted.

Check back in 20 years to see if it took wing.