Wordful Wednesday - Learning to read

I don't remember much about learning to read other than it seemed to come pretty easily as I remember. My Mom may remember differently. I remember sitting in school going over words on flash cards as a class and being rather bored. When it came time to read the little books they sent home I didn't like it at all. The books were the classic Dick and Jane books. I thought the pictures were ugly and the stories were stupid. Nobody talked like that. The teacher had other books that she let one girl in the class read that had pretty pictures. Mom told me to ask for one of those books, but I never did. I still read, but I couldn't wait until I could read real books.

Later I remember devouring books by the light of my bedside lamp late into the night. One of my favorite books was a book of fairy tales at my Grandma's house called After the Sun Sets. My favorite book from the school library was called Peachtree Island. I read this over and over again. My favorite book from my other Grandma's library was Black Beauty. I was definitely one of those girls in love with horses at the time. Another book related favorite was when Dad would read Dr. Seuss books to us. He would ask us to bring them home from the Bookmobile so that we could all read them together.

Now as my boy is starting to recognize words I try to have books around that interest him, no ugly pictures or stupid stories. I'm not in any hurry for him to read, after all he is only 3, but I encourage him when I can by answering all of his "What word say?" questions and spelling things out for him. It is fun to watch him learn.


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