5 For the first two days, Malcolm X just skimmed through the pages of the dictionary trying to negotiate his way through its unfamiliar format . He told us of his amazement at how closely related the words seemed. How moist could be the root of moisture , and advisable and advisory had the same root word! " I didn't know which words I needed to learn, " he said, " finally , just to start some kind of action, I began copying . " In his slow , careful , crude handwriting , Malcolm X copied everything on the first full page of the dictionary into a notebook . He even copied the quotation marks ! This took him one full day. After that, he read everything he had written aloud . " Over and over, aloud , to myself , I read my own handwriting , " Malcolm recalled . He also logged important things that happened every day. Repetition helped move him from basic literacy toward true proficiency . 6 Malcolm X depicted how the next morning when he woke up, he kept thinking about the words he had copied and read aloud and about the acquisition of the knowledge he was pursuing . It was a marvelous feeling . He felt immensely proud . 7 He was so fascinated that he went on copying the dictionary ' s next page . Once again, he awoke , proud and energized . With every succeeding page he copied and read aloud , Malcolm X found he was learning and remembering more and more words. With each successive day, his confusion diminished .