Asked to write an essay for his school's "I Have a Dream" contest, Weston Hock didn't hesitate a second.

His dream was to have a walkathon organized to benefit the 32nd Degree Masons' Learning Center for Children in Belleville. Offering free instruction to children with dyslexia, the center is now helping nearly two dozen area children at the Scottish Rite Temple on Frank Scott Parkway West.

Hock's essay was chosen the best of all fifth-grade papers submitted from 25 Belleville area schools. But here's the thing that makes him far happier: On Oct. 16, he'll see his dream come true when the center hosts its first walk-athon to raise money.

It's another chance to sing the praises of a center that he says has added so much to his life.

"It has helped me a lot, because I couldn't really read before," said the Belleville 11-year-old, proudly showing off the 230-page Star Wars adventure he had just finished. "Now, I can read chapter books."

For his mom, Kathleen, it's like a fairy-tale ending to a small miracle that began in October 2002 when Weston was in the fourth grade at St. Augustine of Canterbury School.

Starting to fail spelling tests and having problems with anything that involved reading, Weston came home one afternoon and told his mom his teacher wanted to see her the next night. Turns out the teacher had only said she might want to see Weston's parents sometime, so she was unprepared when the elder Hocks showed up.

Brenda Hunter, a former St. Augustine teacher, happened to be in the building at the same time. She had just been picked to head the new dyslexia learning center, and, when the dust settled, Weston became the last of three students she selected for her first "class."

Soon, Weston was attending the center for an hour two days a week after school. As his reading skills progressed — he jumped two grade levels in a few months — so did his confidence. He became something akin to a poster boy for the center, speaking at state and national Masonic conventions in Springfield and St. Louis.

"They've taught me how to remember different kinds of spellings," Weston said. "Now, I'm not afraid to talk in front of all these people."

The final feather in his cap was the essay.

"I used to not like the word Dyslexia," he wrote, "but now I feel better because Einstein, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Woopie Goldberg and Tom Cruise also have Dyslexia. ... You can see it is hard to have Dyslexia, but you also can be successful."

Weston hopes the center's walk-athon will be successful, too. He knows his instruction — and that of hundreds of other students at 47 centers in 15 states — is all free. It's a program that now costs the Belleville center nearly $120,000 a year.

Now, says Kathleen Hock, who is helping organize the walk-athon, it's time for a little payback.

"To be perfectly honest, I'm scared to think that he's going to be done with the program," said Hock of her son, who will likely be starting his final year at the center next month. "But they say they've retested these kids and what they have taught them, they seem to retain, so that's the good news.

"I can see that he will always struggle with his reading. He'll be a little bit slower because he has to go at it just a little differently than other kids do. But that he can do and that he will get through the material is what counts."