Can Children and Old People Learn to Read the Same Way?

The answer is YES — if we read aloud to them.

In an interview about his mother, Trần Đăng Khoa told a story of great sweetness:

“My mother could not read; she never once carried a satchel to school. But somehow she knew the whole of Truyện Kiều by heart. Later, when she had a printed copy of it in her hands, she followed line by line through the verses she already knew and so came to recognise the letters… That is how my mother came to read books, and novels. She says it is all thanks to Nguyễn Du. Even so, when I write to her I have to write in block capitals, because she cannot read ordinary handwriting.”

And here is a poem of his about his own mother.

There are many good stories about his mother here.

https://vnexpress.net/tet-cua-dan-que-4045577.html

Mother Is Ill
a poem by Trần Đăng Khoa (a plain line-by-line rendering, not a verse translation)

“On other days mother likes to be merry
Today mother cannot speak or laugh
The betel leaf lies dry in the betel tray
Truyện Kiều has stayed closed by her pillow all this while

The bed curtain hangs loosely closed all day
The fields and the garden are without her hoe from morning to noon
The sun and the rain of all those old days
Have sunk into mother’s life and have not lifted yet

Her whole body aches and burns
Mother! The neighbours have come to see you
One brings eggs, another brings oranges
And the doctor has brought the medicine in

This morning the rain came down hard
Sunlight inside the ripe fruit sends its sweetness on the air
A whole life walking through wind and dew
And now mother is feeling her way along the bed, learning to walk again

If it makes mother glad, what would I not do
Chant poems, tell stories, and then sing and dance
And then I put on a play in the middle of the house
Playing all three chèo parts by myself

For my sake mother has borne every hardship
And around her eyes there are many lines now
I want mother to grow well again little by little
To eat with appetite by day and sleep soundly at night

And then to read her books, and to plant the fields
Mother is my country, and all my days…”

1970