My daughter started Kindergarten today! I can’t believe we are here. She was so excited to go in to class and is so excited to learn. She’s already reading pretty well and is getting to the place where reading is fun and not such hard work. I am glad she’s already a reader! I’m sure it will help her flourish with her learning in her new class. I have worked hard to encourage her love of books and reading. She’s always enjoyed our reading time!
I remember my parents reading to me when I was young. My dad would always cheat and read ahead when we were supposed to be reading a chapter each night. 🙂 He was just so into the stories that he couldn’t wait! My mom and I would read the same books as I became a teenager. It was fun to go shopping for the next installment in a series and then fight over who was going to read it first. We read Christy by Catherine Marshall aloud together when I was sixteen. It was awesome mom/daughter time, and I hope my daughter wants to read with me when she’s older.
We weren’t a family that made frequent trips to the library, though I know this is a great way to introduce children to books–and lots of them–for very little money. I did participate a couple of times in summer reading contests hosted through our school.
I also think my parents encouraged us to read by insisting that we drive on family trips. We’d be in the car for weeks sometimes, driving to the different National Parks, and we didn’t have any nifty electronic devices to distract us back then. On one trip, when I was 13, I ran out of my own books so I started reading my brother’s high school summer reading for his AP class. That’s when I discovered Pride & Prejudice and LOVED it.
What about you? What inspired your love of reading? Did you parents read to you?
What is your earliest memory of books or reading?
Here is a favorite poem of mine! I’ve posted it before, but it’s worth another read.
The Reading Mother
By Strickland Gillilan
I had a mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,
“Blackbirds” stowed in the hold beneath.
I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.
I had a Mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness blent with his final breath.
I had a Mother who read me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings–
Stories that stir with an upward touch,
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be–
I had a Mother who read to me.
This poem is in the public domain.