He was assigned a teacher and given a reader specifically designed to help brain-damaged patients like himself recover their ability to speak and read. He was baffled by it all, but determined to learn.
The next day I was seated humbly beside a teacher. She pointed to the Russian alphabet while I sat there looking on with that idiotic smile on my face. I would look at a letter and not recognize it. What was I to make of all this? I’d learned all that long ago—not only Russian, but German and English. And suddenly I couldn’t read a single Russian letter, to say nothing of foreign alphabets. Impossible, I thought, it must be a dream. It’s got to be. And that stupid smile of disbelief reappeared, an expression that lasted for many years. For I was torn by contradictory feelings. Suddenly I’d think I wasn’t dreaming. But if all this was actually happening, I’d have to move fast and learn to speak, read, and write again if I was to become the person I was before the war, before my injury.
His lessons were difficult, because he had to start from scratch.
My therapist, O. P., would point to a letter and ask me what it was. For a moment that silly smirk almost vanished from my face, for I had to concentrate and come up with some answer. By the third lesson I could remember the letters “m” and “a,” even though I couldn’t recall the letter “m” immediately. When I tried to remember anything my mind seemed empty, a complete blank.
He progressed very slowly. Each step required additional effort, for he constantly had to discover new ways to make sense of letters and so be able to recall them.
I associated the letter “z” with my last name—Zasetsky; the letters “zh” and “sh” [Russian: 
and in] with my sister’s and brother’s names—Zhenya and Shura. Naturally my teacher approved of this way of associating letters with names since she realized I progressed more rapidly. But there were some letters I just couldn’t remember, since I couldn’t find suitable words to associate them with. I’d think up a word, but for the life of me couldn’t remember it a minute later. There were three letters in particular I had trouble remembering—“s,” “k,” and “m.” But later I remembered the word krov [“blood”] which came to mind so often I couldn’t possibly forget it. I concentrated on this word and soon began to associate the letter “k” with it and would remember it each time. Then I did the same thing with the letter “s”—associated it with the word son [“sleep”]. Since I think of that word every night when I go to bed, I quickly remembered the letter “s.” Before that I could never recall it. When I tried to think up a good word with which to remember the letter “t” I suddenly recalled my sister’s name—Tamara.
So I began to make some progress by finding words that would work as memory props. But sometimes I could only remember these for a minute or two before they’d slip my mind completely. Even so, this work has helped me remember more and more letters of the alphabet. Pretty soon I began to associate the letter “1” with Lenin, “ts” with tsar, “zh” with Zhenya, and “sh” with Shura. My teacher suggested I try associating the letter “k” with koshka [“cat”], “s” with stol [“table”], and “t” with torn [“volume”].
Soon he made another discovery that proved to be a great comfort to him. It appeared he could also remember letters by reciting the alphabet out loud as he did as a child, using a long-established oral-motor skill instead of trying to visualize each letter. This method was possible because it required a faculty that had not been damaged by his injury (only the part of the cortex responsible for gauging visual-spatial relationships had been affected, not the verbal-motor functions). So he started to apply this method of learning.
By this time I could remember a great many letters by associating them with different words, but when I tried to visualize a particular letter—“k,” for example—or hunt up a word for it, I needed quite a bit of time in order to recognize it and point it out to my teacher. Suddenly I’d remember the letter, run through the letters of the alphabet, and practically shout when I got to the letter “k.”
After a few months I could remember the entire alphabet. However, I still couldn’t identify any of the letters immediately. When the teacher asked me to point to the letter “k,” I’d have to think for a while and recite the alphabet until I got to “k”! For some reason, I still knew how to recite the alphabet and could run through it without a hitch.
He soon began to read, though his visual span was so limited he could not see an entire word at a glance but had to read letter by letter, straining his memory to recognize each one and not let it slip his mind when he went on to the next.
When I try to read a book, the most I can take in are three letters at a time (in the beginning I could only see one). I also have to focus a little to the right and above a letter in order to see it. That’s the way I manage to see a letter, though I can’t immediately remember how to say it. My memory seems blocked, as though it has some kind of a brake on it.
I read printed matter letter by letter. When I first started to read again, I often couldn’t recognize a letter at first and had to run through the alphabet until I found it. But later I did this less and less and tried to remember it myself—just waited until it came. Often after I’ve figured out the letters in a word, I forget the word itself and have to read every letter over again in order to understand it. Sometimes I read a text and don’t make any sense out of it—I just read through it. If I want to understand a word, I have to wait until the meaning comes to me. Only after I read a word and understand it can I go on to the next word, and then the third. By the time I get to the third word I often forget what the first or sometimes even the second word meant. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t remember.
I have to read words one at a time until I get the meaning—I read a word, understand it, then go on to the next, then to the third. I also have to stop at the fourth letter of every word, because even though I can see it and know how it’s pronounced, I’ve already forgotten the first three letters. While I’m looking at the fourth letter, I can still see the second and third, but not the first letter of the word, which is completely blurred.
And so he started to read letter by letter, word by word, all the while fearing a letter he had just recognized would escape him or a word be immediately forgotten.
I started to read a chapter of a book someone had pointed out taking it in letter by letter, syllable by syllable, word by word. But I read so slowly I got irritated. What’s more, one eye (particularly the right one) seemed to hinder the other—my eyes would focus to one side carrying off a letter I’d been looking at. I’d try to find the letter or word I’d just lost track of in the text and hurry, knowing I was losing time. But I’d forget where I had stopped reading—at which particular word or letter.
In the last few months it’s become even harder for me to read a newspaper or book. Why have I run into more problems? Say I’m reading a chapter—I can’t even get through half of it. It would have been simpler if I’d just spent some time trying to remember particular words—like eclipse or sun or moon. . . .
As the years passed, he continued to read, trying to recognize letters, link one letter to the next, and not forget them. But the problem grew no simpler with time, for further obstacles appeared.
During the last few years I’ve had considerable blocks in reading and my pace has become even slower. What’s more, letters seem to escape my span of vision more and more often. Once (May 2, 1967) while I was reading and looking at a letter (with my left eye first and then my right), I noticed I couldn’t see out of my right eye. The letter looked so small (two or three times smaller than it did to my left eye which had almost normal vision). I couldn’t figure out what letter it was. It was so blurred and tiny it was painful to look at.
It took an incredible effort for him to learn to read. Was he any more fortunate in his attempt to write?