MY FIRST BLOCK: THE STORY OF HELEN KELLER

    This is my first time, my first write on spiderum. Actualy, I didn't know what should or what could I write about. Then I saw this little book.

    My cousin gave me 4 years ago. And I've just read it last week. It shows you some skills to help you "read english faster". But I won't write about that. In half after of this book, there are some little story and one of them is the story about Helen Keller. I'll write down this story for you guy.

    OK, Let's start!

    Helen Keller was a nomal baby until she was 19 months old, when she suddenly became ill with a fever that left her almost as suddenly as it had come. Soon her mother noticed that when she bathed the child, Helen's eyes did not close. The doctor said that Helen was blind. Next Mrs. Keller noticed that the child did not seemed to hear the loud ringing of a bell. Helen was deaf, too. Beacause she could not hear at a time when nomal children learn ti imitate the language of others, she was also mute. Everyone said that she would always be deaf, mute and blind.

    But in 1886, when Helen was 6 years old, something happened that changed her life completely. A young teacher arrived at Keller's home. Her name was Anne Sullivan. Helen rushed at Miss Sullivan when she came to Keller's door. She put her hands on the teacher's face and dress, and she tried to open the teacher's bag. She started a wild fight when Mrs. Keller tried to take the bag out of her hands. Miss Sullivan gave her a doll and Helen sat down on the steps to play with it.

    When Helen had played with the doll for several minutes, Miss Sullivan took the child's hand and spelled the letters drawing d-o-l-l into Helen's palm. Helen was interested in these strange motions and she tried to imitate the motions of the teacher's fingers. This was the first time that anyone had tried to teach Helen Keller.

    When Miss Sullivan took the doll from Helen, a new fight began, these were many more. Helen had a wild, strong spirit and she seemed to feel that her world was a prison.

    One day two weeks after Miss sullivan arrived, the teacher and her pupil took a cup and went behind the house to get some water. As Miss Sullivan poured the water into the cup and over the child's right hand, she spelled w-a-t-e-r into the palm of Helen's other hand. The word, coming immediately after the feeling of cold water, seemed to startle Helen. She dropped the cup and stood amazed, motionless. A new light come into her face.

    "At that moment," Miss Keller said later, "in some way, I suddenly understood the mystery of language. I knew then that water meant the wonderful cool thing that had rushed over my hand. That living word touched my spirit, giving it light, hope, joy."

    Helen returned  to the house in great excitement. She touched everything that she passed, trying eagerly to find its name. She touched the trees, the flowers, the house. She knew now that everything had a name. Before many hours, she had added 30 news words to her vocabulary.

    Miss Sullivan taught her to read words (doll, bed, cup, and flower), using raised letters and spacing each word beside its object. She taught her to read raised sentences. She made raised maps for her pupil and taught to count group of objects. She taught to write with pencil. A month after she had learned to write , Helen wrote a letter to her cousin. It was correctly spelled and easy to read.

    Before many years had passed, Helen had learned to read Braille. She read everything that was brought to her. She alse learned to communicate by spelling word's into her teacher's hand. But she was still mute, and she was eager to conquer this handicap.

    One day, when she was ten years old, she read about a Norwegian girl who was also deaf, mute and blind. The Norwegian girl had learned to talk. At once Helen spelled into her teacher's hand: "I must speak!"

    Miss Sullivan took her to Miss Sarah Fuller, a famous teacher foe the deaf. Miss Fuller began at once and showed Helen what to do. Helen moved her hand over Miss Fuller's mouth to learn the position of the tougue, lips and teeth. Then she made the sound that the teacher had made.

    The teacher made other sounds after that, and Helen imitated them all. Then Miss Fuller pronounced some simple words, moving her fingers across Helen's hand to show her length of the syllables.

    Riding home after her seventh lesson, Heln turned to Miss Sullivan and said in a strange, hollow voice: "I can speak now". This was her first real use of humen speech.

    Helen took eleven lessons from Miss Fuller, but this was only the beginning of her long fight to learn to speak. Week after week, month after month, year after year, she tried to speak more clearly. She repeated words and sentences for hoursm using her fingers to lear the vibrations of Miss Sullivan's throat, the movement of her tougue and the expression of her face as she talked.

    She quickly learned to read lips by vibration. By putting one's finger on the speaker's nose, another on his lips and another on his throat, she learned to "hear" what others said, especially if their speech was clear and loud.

    In later years she was able to "hear" Mark Twain's best jokes by vibration. With her fingers on his lips, the fomous singer Enrico Caruso "poured" his golden voice into her hand. Jascha Heifetz played for her while her fingers rested slightly on his violin.

    Helen Keller's victories over her handicaps soon made her famous. She began to correspond with many famous people, writting in English and in French. She attended college, with Miss Sullivan besides her spelling the proffessor's lectures into her hand. She was graduated from college in1904, when she was 24 years old.

    At once Miss Keller was invited to write articles for magazines and to speak for the blind in many parts of the world. She received honors in many lands. In every country,  boys and girls in the most distant villagesran to meet her, shouting "Helen Keller!"

    The name of Helen Keller will be remembered long after other names are forgotten. Blind, mute and deaf from early childhood, she conquered all three handicaps. Her steady courage and hard work have given inspiration to people everywhere in the world.