a tick tock star is documenting his journey of teaching himself to read and inspiring the entire internet in the process ikijachi has his story good morning Ike good morning Lindsay Oliver James doesn't know the meaning of no even if a lifelong learning disability suggests otherwise James he's functionally illiterate but he's been on a personal journey to change that now with the help of thousands of fans Oliver James knows well it doesn't take much to overcome the odds the only person stopping you is you all right so this is the van isn't it yep yep using this small van and a simple setup The Tick-Tock star films all of his videos right here in this front seat I usually clip that in there put that on there push play and just do a couple of my uh lives or a couple of my uh videos and that's pretty much with some gym equipment inside in between training his clients the 34 year old aspiring motivational speaker and part-time personal trainer trains his mind you working on your plank for your handstand your reading tick tock's latest literary star Sky skyrocketed to fame not from planks or push-ups or even punches instead it was his problems hey how's it going my name is Oliver I struggle with reading according to the Department of Education more than 43 million Americans cannot read write or do math above a third grade level on top of that James is just one of over 8 million American adults who are considered functionally illiterate James's struggles with reading growing up led to behavioral issues especially in school the special education system at the time was more focused on behavioral than educating so they spent a lot of time restraining us a lot of time disciplining us a lot of times putting us positions to kind of shape us to just not act out in class did that prevent you from learning you can't fully function in society without the tools that you need as a young person behavioral issues stemming from childhood illiteracy often stretch into adulthood many times leading to unemployment low self-esteem and isolation all things James struggled with in the beginning that is until his wife gave him something he's never owned before a book this quote book that James says changed everything I just went out and read one word one word turned into two two words turned into three that turned into a page his reading skills improved so much that he's now on a New Journey 100 books in 2023 now I gotta say we got a little surprised for you oh our friends at Barnes heard your story and they wanted to contribute to your own Library by helping you with these books All For You Jacob they're all yours you couldn't get those books out of my hands fast enough now Oliver tells me he still has trouble understanding punctuation in writing in fact he uses voice to text in order to write the posts on his Tick Tock which is why there are spelling errors at times and get this he says he's all doing this so that one day he can teach his three-week old son to read and guys Oliver and I made a tick tock check it out on his page at Oliver speaks one so Ike are you guys planking and reading in that Tick Tock he's planking I'm reading I'm not trying any of that stuff all right thanks so much well hey there GMA fans Robin Roberts here thanks for checking out our YouTube channel lots of great stuff here so go on click the Subscribe button right over right over here to get more of Awesome videos and content from GMA every day anytime we thank you for watching and we'll see you in the morning on GMA