Curious but timid, 6-year-old Jacob Tierney slowly reached to feel the tactile illustration from a carefully designed children’s book.

Such a page was unique and wonderful to the first-grader’s gentle touch.

“Wow,” he said after some hesitation. “It was kinda cool.”

Captivated boys and girls at Lea Hill Elementary School discovered another way to read and learn last week from a special guest.

Becky Sherman lost her sight when she was 1½ years old. She had learned how to walk and discovered the spectrum of colors before a virus damaged her optic nerve. The view of her world, as she can best remember it, suddenly faded to darkness.

“But I learned how to read Braille in the first grade,” a smiling Sherman told a cast of first-graders gathered in Regina Butler’s reading lab. “I learned how to listen to sights and sounds.”

Sherman would learn how to overcome and cope with her disability with support and training – the type of guidance she continues to provide for the blind today. She teaches daily living skills to transitional students, ages 14-20, for the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind in Seattle.

“I enjoy working with kids,” Sherman said between readings at Lea Hill Elementary. “My real passion is working with blind kids because they are so disadvantaged.”

Given the opportunity, the gracious Kent woman also speaks to schoolchildren who are willing to listen to her inspirational story.

Sherman – accompanied by her husband, Barry, and 3-year-old granddaughter, Kaitlyn Coburn – was invited to read to youngsters at Lea Hill as part of the Auburn School District’s weeklong celebration of the National Education Association’s Read Across America Day.

More than 35 staff members throughout the district volunteered their time to motivate children to read as part of the Read Across America campaign, now in its 12th year. The program takes place on or near March 2, the birthday of Dr. Seuss.

Butler, a language arts specialist, and her staff invited the community to participate. The idea of bringing Sherman to class provided a unique opportunity for kids to recognize a different approach, perspective and appreciation to reading and learning.

“I see many different messages out of this … like don’t limit yourself and encourage yourself to read,” Butler said. “This is going to help them in so many ways.”

Sherman read passages of several books to the children. Between lines, she described her own story and how she overcame challenges to enjoy many things in life, including the wonders of reading.

“Braille is not a foreign language,” Sherman reminded the class. “You can learn it in Spanish, German, French and other languages.”

The students got a chance to feel and follow the dot patterns belonging to the script and pictures in the Braille-styled books.

Sherman also demonstrated to the young audience how she adroitly gets around with a walking cane.

Sherman is a voracious reader. She reads about 40 books a year, mostly fiction based on historical events. Her latest book included 1,583 pages of Braille.

She reads about 200-300 words a minute. The year-end goal for Lea Hill first-graders is to read about 65 words a minute, Butler said.

“She my motivator,” Barry Sherman said. “And she’s an inspiration to others.”

Barry Sherman, who works for the Washington State Patrol crime lab, also represents the local King Solomon Masonic Lodge No. 60. The Shermans have been married for 15 years.

Becky Sherman’s message was clear and purposeful.

“That everybody should be literate to be successful,” she said, “and that everybody has strengths and weaknesses.”