Ship’s Log #54 · October 26, 2026
She Struggled to Read. Then Taught Thousands How.
Every independent reader is the result of a visionary educator who refused to give up on a child.— Delia Peruyera
Episode Summary
Delia Peruyera arrived in the United States from Cuba as a teenager who couldn’t reliably read a sign — letters jumping and reversing, compounded by a visual tremor she carries to this day. What followed was a 37-year career inside Miami-Dade classrooms, the last seven of which she spent at a struggling middle school, helping move it from an F to a B using five clinical reading strategies she’d spent decades refining. This episode is the story of how a child who couldn’t read the world around her became the person who teaches others how to.
Delia and Jeanne dig into America’s literacy crisis — why the numbers have barely moved in 50 years, what a “clinical reading specialist” actually does that a classroom teacher can’t, and why culture, habit, and access matter as much as phonics. Delia shares her GPS analogy, the brain science behind the bike-riding connection, and a portrait of what happens when a 13-year-old soccer player finally hears himself read a full paragraph out loud for the first time.
The episode closes with Two Truths and a Lie: a 14-year-old lost for hours in Miami Beach, a mysterious encounter in Vienna with someone who looked exactly like Lauren Bacall, and an invitation to teach reading in zero gravity. One of them is a lie.
About Delia Peruyera
Clinical Reading Specialist · Founder, Read With Ease
Delia Peruyera spent 37 years as a Clinical Reading Specialist in Miami-Dade County schools before founding Read With Ease, a program that turns struggling readers into independent learners. She now trains educators to use those same strategies — and build a business doing it. She arrived in the United States from Cuba as a teenager, barely speaking English, and read her way here one word at a time.
Every guest has a story. What’s yours?
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