I'm cutting and pasting this from my Teaching Primary Reading course assignment I had to turn in last week while I was sick. I meant to post it as a blog entry then, but decided to go to bed instead. Anyway, here it is. And, by the way, it earned full credit and the comment "Excellent essay." While I may ramble a lot in my blog and make tons of grammatical errors here, I actually do know standard English. ;-)
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“Learning to read?” I wondered. “You mean, I haven't always known how to read?” These were my passing thoughts as I pondered this assignment. Reading has always been an integral part of my entire life. I must have passed through the learning-to-read stage fairly quickly into the loving-to-read stage. While my memories of formal education on the subject are pretty sketchy, they all involve educators who promoted reading, read to us as a class, and exposed us to books.
My elementary year memories deal with my teachers' promoting reading in various ways. While I vaguely remember sitting in reading groups during first grade and doing shoe-box book reports in later grades, my most vivid reading memories come from fifth grade. Mrs. Brock had a book worm that we the students had to create. He started as just a head. At the beginning of the year, a six-inch colored circle with eyes and a mouth waited in a top corner of the room. Each time one of us read a book, we got to write the name of the book on another colored six-inch circle, and Mrs. Brock would add the circle to the worm. Before the year ended, we had our book worm circling the room around multiple times. It was fun to watch him grow and satisfying as a class project.
However, Mrs. Brock also promoted reading on a more individual level. The first semester, the person who read the most books would win a large four-foot stuffed Garfield. I very much wanted to win that Garfield and had no problem reading enough books to be the winner. The second semester, everyone was a winner. We earned points for reading books that we could trade in for small items at her store. Mrs. Brock was giving us tangible rewards while also teaching us the tremendous reward of reading itself.
While I'm sure that my elementary teachers did read to us, my first memories of being read to come from junior high. I have distinct memories of my English teacher reading classics like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Scarlet Pimpernel in seventh grade. To help us learn more, she had folders with projects about the books that we could complete for extra credit. I was into fantasy books, and these were certainly not books I would have chosen for myself. However, I discovered that I loved those books and it started a life-long love of all things French and British. I set about learning the names and dates of the British monarchy and saved my money to buy books that could teach me how to speak French. One of my fondest memories is my senior English and history teacher giving me one of his old books entitled History of England. I still have – and cherish - that book.
Promoting books and reading them to us would have done nothing if we weren't exposed to lots of books and the possibilities they bring with them. Around my third-grade year, Fletcher Schools received a $10,000 3-year state grant to start a library. In the fifth grade, my mother took over as the elementary librarian and in later years as the high school librarian. I helped her process and shelve books from day one until I graduated high school. With the grant, my mother was able to buy lots of new books. Of course, part of her “processing” each book for the library involved first reading the book. As a result, our home was filled with stacks of books at any given time of the year. I would go with her to author signings and we'd come home with even more books. My mother opened a world of books to us at home. She read books to us often and even read in the car on vacations. Even today, years after retirement, my mother doesn't sit down without a book in her hands.
At school, my mom exposed all of the students to books just as much as she did with us at home. She would hold contests where we got to vote for books in the Sequoya reading awards. I remember looking at her bulletin board of book jackets and summaries from the nominated books in order to pick out which ones I wanted to read. Our class would visit the library to hear my mom read books to us, and she always got us excited about books. She would use flannel boards to tell the stories and have us draw pictures and do other artistic things with the story as well. She showed us that books weren't just stories. There were books for everything. She taught us how to use the reference books, and I desperately wanted to read through the entire encyclopedia. There were even books that helped kids write off for free stuff like the vial of Mount St. Helen's volcano ash that I still have. Books taught you how to do crafts and provided templates for paper dolls that I traced and colored over and over. Books opened worlds of possibilities.
With teachers who promoted reading and read to me, along with a librarian mother who showed us that there was a book for everything, how could I possibly not be totally addicted to reading? Habits from my childhood have not been broken. I still feel the need to read if even just for a few minutes before turning out the light at bedtime. Even as an adult who ought to know better, I still end up staying up too late to read the end of a suspenseful book with a flashlight so as not to wake up my husband. In truth, I can't imagine life without reading. It's one of my biggest passions and is one of the reasons that in my mid-thirties I'm returning to school for a new career. I desperately want to share my passion with other emergent and beginning readers. I want to be part of the birthing process of their life-long passions for reading. I think my returning the gift of reading will be the best thank-you for all the teachers who shared their love of reading with me.
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The Birth of My Passion for Reading
January 17, 2011
January 17, 2011
“Learning to read?” I wondered. “You mean, I haven't always known how to read?” These were my passing thoughts as I pondered this assignment. Reading has always been an integral part of my entire life. I must have passed through the learning-to-read stage fairly quickly into the loving-to-read stage. While my memories of formal education on the subject are pretty sketchy, they all involve educators who promoted reading, read to us as a class, and exposed us to books.
My elementary year memories deal with my teachers' promoting reading in various ways. While I vaguely remember sitting in reading groups during first grade and doing shoe-box book reports in later grades, my most vivid reading memories come from fifth grade. Mrs. Brock had a book worm that we the students had to create. He started as just a head. At the beginning of the year, a six-inch colored circle with eyes and a mouth waited in a top corner of the room. Each time one of us read a book, we got to write the name of the book on another colored six-inch circle, and Mrs. Brock would add the circle to the worm. Before the year ended, we had our book worm circling the room around multiple times. It was fun to watch him grow and satisfying as a class project.
However, Mrs. Brock also promoted reading on a more individual level. The first semester, the person who read the most books would win a large four-foot stuffed Garfield. I very much wanted to win that Garfield and had no problem reading enough books to be the winner. The second semester, everyone was a winner. We earned points for reading books that we could trade in for small items at her store. Mrs. Brock was giving us tangible rewards while also teaching us the tremendous reward of reading itself.
While I'm sure that my elementary teachers did read to us, my first memories of being read to come from junior high. I have distinct memories of my English teacher reading classics like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Scarlet Pimpernel in seventh grade. To help us learn more, she had folders with projects about the books that we could complete for extra credit. I was into fantasy books, and these were certainly not books I would have chosen for myself. However, I discovered that I loved those books and it started a life-long love of all things French and British. I set about learning the names and dates of the British monarchy and saved my money to buy books that could teach me how to speak French. One of my fondest memories is my senior English and history teacher giving me one of his old books entitled History of England. I still have – and cherish - that book.
Promoting books and reading them to us would have done nothing if we weren't exposed to lots of books and the possibilities they bring with them. Around my third-grade year, Fletcher Schools received a $10,000 3-year state grant to start a library. In the fifth grade, my mother took over as the elementary librarian and in later years as the high school librarian. I helped her process and shelve books from day one until I graduated high school. With the grant, my mother was able to buy lots of new books. Of course, part of her “processing” each book for the library involved first reading the book. As a result, our home was filled with stacks of books at any given time of the year. I would go with her to author signings and we'd come home with even more books. My mother opened a world of books to us at home. She read books to us often and even read in the car on vacations. Even today, years after retirement, my mother doesn't sit down without a book in her hands.
At school, my mom exposed all of the students to books just as much as she did with us at home. She would hold contests where we got to vote for books in the Sequoya reading awards. I remember looking at her bulletin board of book jackets and summaries from the nominated books in order to pick out which ones I wanted to read. Our class would visit the library to hear my mom read books to us, and she always got us excited about books. She would use flannel boards to tell the stories and have us draw pictures and do other artistic things with the story as well. She showed us that books weren't just stories. There were books for everything. She taught us how to use the reference books, and I desperately wanted to read through the entire encyclopedia. There were even books that helped kids write off for free stuff like the vial of Mount St. Helen's volcano ash that I still have. Books taught you how to do crafts and provided templates for paper dolls that I traced and colored over and over. Books opened worlds of possibilities.
With teachers who promoted reading and read to me, along with a librarian mother who showed us that there was a book for everything, how could I possibly not be totally addicted to reading? Habits from my childhood have not been broken. I still feel the need to read if even just for a few minutes before turning out the light at bedtime. Even as an adult who ought to know better, I still end up staying up too late to read the end of a suspenseful book with a flashlight so as not to wake up my husband. In truth, I can't imagine life without reading. It's one of my biggest passions and is one of the reasons that in my mid-thirties I'm returning to school for a new career. I desperately want to share my passion with other emergent and beginning readers. I want to be part of the birthing process of their life-long passions for reading. I think my returning the gift of reading will be the best thank-you for all the teachers who shared their love of reading with me.