The words, at least the ones on paper, didn’t come easily.

Not at first.

As a child, Meghan Heaney ’26 remembers sitting with books and feeling the quiet frustration that comes when letters refuse to cooperate. She was 8, maybe 9, before reading began to click in a way that felt natural. Before that, it was work. Slow, uneven, sometimes discouraging work.

“It was really challenging,” she says. “Frustrating, too. Reading seemed to come naturally to everyone except me.”

That memory hasn’t faded. It has sharpened.

On May 9, Meghan will graduate from Guilford College with a degree in Education Studies, carrying with her not just a diploma but a sense of direction rooted in those early struggles. In the fall, she’ll pursue her master’s at Appalachian State University in – what else? – Literacy Education.

Meghan’s path is one shaped, in many ways, by the girl who once labored over words. “I think about my younger self a lot,” she says. “And I think that’s why teaching reading feels so important to me.”

She grew up in a home where learning didn’t look like rows of desks or ringing bells. She was homeschooled alongside her siblings, taught by a mother who emphasized patience, creativity and trust in the process. There were no rigid timelines, no comparisons.

“Mom always said, ‘You’re on your own learning journey,’” Meghan recalls. “I think that really gave me the space I needed.”

That space mattered. It allowed reading to arrive not as a source of anxiety, but as something discovered — gradually, then all at once. Her mother filled the gaps with trips to the library, hours spent reading aloud, and an approach that leaned into imagination and curiosity.

Now, Meghan is an avid reader. Romance, mystery, literary fiction. The genres vary, but the feeling is constant.

Others might be heading to the beach after graduation. Meghan has other plans. “I’m excited to have more time to read after graduation, just for fun,” she says.

The irony isn’t lost on her. The child who once struggled to decode sentences now wants to build a career helping others do the same.

Meet more members of Guilford's Class of 2026

That instinct, it turns out, was there early.

Long before she declared an Education Studies major, before campus visits and course catalogs, there was “Rainbow School” — a name dreamed up by Meghan teaching her younger brother Anthony in a playroom.

“I would make him do school with me. I’d teach him letters — like the letter M,” she says, tracing it in the air. “Up a mountain, down a mountain, up a mountain – I just loved it.”

Hindsight always seems to bring clarity to someone’s path. Meghan says that’s obvious now. “My mom said she always thought I’d go into teaching,” she says. “Even back then, I just had such a love for it.”

That love followed her to Guilford, where she found a program – and a community – that reinforced what she already suspected.

“I feel like it’s my life’s purpose,” she says. “This is what I’m meant to do.”

It was during her junior year, in a course on literacy instruction, that everything came into focus. The class explored how children learn to read – the science behind it, the methods, the nuances. At the same time, Meghan was a student teaching in a first-grade classroom at Guilford Elementary just down the road from the College.

Theory met practice.

“I would go to class and learn about how the brain learns to read,” she says. “Then I’d go into the classroom and actually teach those lessons. It was like — this is it. This is what I care about.”

She called her mother after class, eager to share what she had learned. Phonics. Comprehension. The building blocks of literacy.

“I just found such a passion for it,” she says.

That passion carried into her senior thesis, which examined how movement and dance can support literacy development in young students. It’s a reflection of her broader approach — one that sees learning as dynamic, creative and deeply human.

For Meghan, reading is more than a skill. It’s a doorway. “It builds empathy,” she says. “When you read, you’re stepping into someone else’s perspective. That’s so powerful for kids.”

It’s also, she notes, a kind of refuge. “Reading can be a safe space,” she says. “A place where you can just be.”

Graduation is rapidly approaching. Meghan will be the first to tell you she is excited. In the same breath she’ll tell you there remains in her a measure of uncertainty. She is weighing options — possibly a preschool teaching position, possibly time at home with family — even as her next step, graduate school, is set.

“I’m excited and nervous all at once,” she says. “It feels like everything’s going by so quickly.”

But the throughline is steady.

A girl who once needed time and patience to find her footing in reading now wants to offer the same to others. Not every child learns at the same pace. Not every path is linear.

Meghan knows that firsthand.

“That,” she says smiling, “is what I want my students to know. That’s the whole point to teaching – learning at your pace.”