Who taught you how to read? How old were you at the time? Where did you reside? What were the circumstances? Can you recall your first favorite story or book?
Do you enjoy reading today? Do you think the manner in which you learned to read had anything to do with how pleasurable you find it now?
Just curious...!
I believe I learned to read in first grade, although I remember my parents reading to me earlier than that, I learned how to read in school. I was at a private school at the time and I remember reading these annoying little booklets. I was not a very fast reader at the beginning and I did not enjoy it very much. In about the fourth grade I started to really enjoy reading and I began to read faster. From that point on I read all the time. My first favorite book was My Side of the Mountain I believe.
ReplyDeleteI still really enjoy reading although I don't really have any time for recreational reading since coming to RIT. All that time spent reading was very beneficial as it really helped me during standardized tests. I got a very high score on the reading portion due to my reading speed and comprehension. I don't think the manner in which I learned how to read had as much to do with my enjoyment of reading. I think my parent's constant encouragement really propelled me towards reading.
My first grade teacher, Mrs. Miller, taught me how to read when I was six-years-old. We had these reading groups in class that were assigned by reading level. I was in the second highest group but my best friend was in the highest so I wanted to be in that one. I remember being really excited to learn how to read and I remember enjoying it, but I don't think I really fell in love with reading until I was in middle school. I can't recall a favorite first book but for a while I was pretty obsessed with "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss...of course at the time I think it was far below my actual reading level.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE reading today! It is probably my favorite thing to do. I don't think the manner in which I learned to read had very much to do with my love for reading because I distinctly remember being yelled at a few times in class for reading "the wrong way"...whatever that means. The main reason I enjoy books so much now is probably because of the people I grew up around. My sister has always loved books and been a prolific reader. She's actually an English teacher now! My friends also really enjoy reading, so we are always talking about and recommending books to each other -- we even had a book club for a while when we were in high school!
When I was younger, I was always very curious about reading. I remember in preschool, we had free time to visit whatever stations, where each station had a different learning activity. I'd often visit the reading station and go over the same book, which was a simple book of words that went along with pictures of the word. I spent so much time with that book trying to memorize each word. Whenever I was with my parents, too, I would make them read everything they could to me. I can remember my first favorite book being "Where's Spot?" I had it memorized at a certain point, and would read it to my parents to try and show off.
ReplyDeleteI still sort of enjoy reading, but not in the typical sense. I love reading argumentative pieces or informative articles, and I really enjoy biographies and autobiographies, but usually I won't read a work of fiction unless it comes highly recommended. It's a bit odd how eager I was to pick up reading compared to how little I read "literary works" (like novels, poems, etc...). I guess I lost interest somewhere along the way in reading everything I could.
All I remember about my learning to read was that I was adept at it by kindergarten... back then, I had piles of those licensed Disney books for kids, and I likely read through each of them a dozen times. I couldn't remember the plot of any but a select few. (In the same way, I watched way too much of Toy Story 1 and Space Jam, yet there are piles of VHS tapes in my closet.) I didn't go to preschool, instead being taught by my mother, who stayed home while my dad worked, and grandmother. They always tell a story about how I was writing my name all over the walls in highlighter when I was two, but I don't believe that...as far as I remember, I've been reading a long time.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, when I actually got to school, I was more interested in playing with the cube puzzles and using the then brand-new Windows 98 computers, with their typing games. The teacher gave me reading assignments in paragraphs ahead of the class while they all wouldn't catch up until second grade. Then as far as I'm concerned, I stayed about equal with my classmates. We had separate classes for reading, spelling, and writing. I tried to take advantage of all three. My reading class exposed me to books that I otherwise would have never come across: "The Westing Game," "The Giver" (though I still question how it's a children's book), and "Peak" come to mind. I enjoyed reading those books, but it never seemed to catch on with me outside of class. I suppose that I thought I was just fine at English, then I stopped caring until I suddenly had to start crafting papers and I was behind the rest of the class. I didn't peak early, because I'd be frozen in place and my grammar would be much worse, but I seem to have more trouble now.
As for my reading habits today... I generally haven't picked up any books that I haven't been required to read for my high school classes. That's not to say I didn't enjoy those: "The Glass Castle" had me in a philosophical state for months, and "Nickel and Dimed" (an experiment about living on minimum wage) sort of inspired me to go to college...but I will never understand "The Great Gatsby." I'm more interested in games and movies than literary works nowadays, but hat doesn't mean I won't pick up a news article or short story and read it. It really depends on the context.
My mom taught me how to read, but I can't remember much about going through the process of learning. What I do remember is after I had become better at it, I would look out the window during car rides and read every sign or advertisement out loud. When I try to look back and think about it, I can't remember not knowing how to read. I remember knowing how to read in daycare, before I started kindergarten.
ReplyDeleteMy older brother is dyslexic, and when my mom would sit in the kitchen and help him with homework or reading something, I would always be sitting on her lap. I think after a while I started to pick up on some things and my mom ended up teaching me partially that way.
I loved reading as a kid, and I still do. When I was in elementary school I would pick books out of the classroom library and go through them like crazy. I think I read the entire Goosebumps series at some point. I also remember in second grade, there was one book my teacher would read us that I thought was fascinating, and I would read it over and over again. At the end of the school year, my teacher ended up giving the book to me as a gift, but I can't remember the name of it now. I still love reading but I've had less and less time for it.
That is so funny! When we used to take road trips, I used to read all the signs, as well! I think it drove my parents crazy because I did it for hours, but I think it made them happy at the same time!
DeleteI don't know about you, but this happened to me again once I learned ASL. When I was a passenger in a car ride, I would fingerspell all the words on the sign. It really helped me improve.
Anyway, I loved reading your post!
Me too! I would finger spell EVERYTHING - in classes under my desk, and when I was driving sometimes if I only needed one hand (still do this sometimes).
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ReplyDeleteI first learned to read from my parents. I remember the first book I had to read myself was a Winnie the Pooh book my parents had bought for me. It had a white cover with Winnie and Piglet walking into the forest together. I remember the image vividly.
Anyway, at the time I was enrolled in a private Catholic elementary school. My mother’s friends had children in the public school by me, and comparatively, I was falling behind all of them. My parents did some research and found the public schools required everyday reading. The school I was in didn’t implement that system, so my parents and I began reading everyday. It makes sense now: why wouldn’t you implement that system into your curriculum if you want strong readers? Turns out, I was behind in other subject areas, specifically math. My parents decided to put me into the public school, where I quickly caught up.
However, that didn’t come without its challenges. Because I was behind, I needed to do twice the work that was required. I would fight my parents with reading, almost daily, because it didn’t come easy to me, and my peers weren’t struggling (at least at the time they weren’t). Once I finally caught on though, I did really well.
As for reading now, I do enjoy it, however, I don’t have much time for it. A lot of the books I tend to read now relate to my major, or are textbooks. I don’t get much time to read books that I would choose otherwise. I do think the struggle I had to endure to read does impact me still today. I still do have to withhold the urge to fight back reading something I don’t want to. For example, if we have to read an article for a class that doesn’t relate to my major or isn’t interesting to me, I tend to not want to read it. I think this is because it resembles the forced reading I had to do as a child.
Anyway, I am excited about the semester system because it may provide me with some more free time. Maybe even enough time to pick up a good book and enjoy it.
I started learning to read at a fairly young age, beginning to read is kind of fuzzy to me, I don't really remember it. I know my mom used to make my sister and I read for an hour every night at one point during our childhood, and I remember reading road signs a lot (which I still do, even when I'm just a passenger). I don't think I particularly liked reading until I was in 3rd grade when my grandma and my aunt found this Mary-Kate and Ashley mystery series. They would send me some books in the series every now and then, and I couldn't wait until I got the next one. That's when I really started to read a lot and really liked reading. Before then I would fight with my mom about practicing spelling words, and reading for school, and I usually didn't do to well on my spelling tests; even once I got into middle school, I hated spelling tests. During our summer vacations my mom would bring us to the library every week and we would take out a whole lot of books each. I would spend almost all day long reading if I could. As for now, I don't really have a lot of time to read large books for fun, occasionally I'll start one on an e-reader, but it usually takes a long time to finish it. I usually read more during vacations. The majority of what I read outside of class work now consists of articles that I stumble upon and find the title interesting, or the news.
ReplyDeleteMary-Kate and Ashley books were my favorite too! I actually still have them ALL. Theirs no way i would throw them out or donate them at this point, i love them too much!
DeleteI don't remember actually learning how to pronounce words, but i do remember my favorite books and beginning to learn how to get through each page. When i first started learning, i would skip over the words that i didn't know. After a while i began learning more and more words, and i was so excited when i finally got through all of the Disney books without skipping any words. That was a big day for me! I don't remember my age, but my dad bought me all of those books. I read all of them (probably around 15 i had) within two days. I was so excited. I do enjoy reading now, for pleasure more or less. I'm not a big fan of reading text books for school or long drawn out stories that i have to write reports on. I like reading interesting books that i find great, and i don't make myself write anything about them. Maybe that's why i like the ones i pick, i don't have an assignment to do afterwards (haha). In fact, when i'm reading a text that i really don't like, i find myself reading just so i can take the exam, not to really learn the material. Its much easier to read something thats very interesting to you, and to keep all the new knowledge in your head, than to read something your not much interested in to take an exam. I do remember a few things out of books that i don't like though, things that haven't been brought to my attention before or something that i had no idea about, i do often re-read those things a few times just so i actually learn them. Reading is a great thing for the mind! Even when i have the summers off, i still head to the library to find a good book to read.
ReplyDeleteMy parents loved to read a story to me and my brothers every night before bed, and I think that that more than anything else taught me how to read. I would look at the words in the book while my dad read them out loud, and over time was able to repeat them. One of our favorite books was about a giant red strawberry. My dad must have read it to us a hundred times, and one night I thought that I had learned to read the book and told him that I wanted to read it to him instead. After I finished the book, he said that I didn't actually know how to read, I was just looking at the pictures and reciting the story from memory. While this may have been true at the time, it wasn't long before I could read other books for real. Learning to write was a whole other ordeal, however.
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy reading for pleasure today, but haven't had the time to since I have been up here at college. Every time I sit down to read a book, I always wonder why I don't read more often, but it seems so difficult to do when there is other work to be done.
I want to say I learned to read simple words and sentences in kindergarten, nothing too hard. But in first grade was when I started to read childrens books and actually comprehend the sentence as a whole. I remember my grandmother helping me read after school, and my mom and I would read at night before I went to bed. I had a very large book with a ton of different bedtime stories that I would choose from and my mom would help me if I needed her help.
ReplyDeleteI love to read, but the books have to grab my attention or else I won’t enjoy it. I don’t think that the manner in which I learned to read had an effect on why I like to read now. In high school and my first year in college I hated reading. Now it has become a hobby of mine. I usually read during the summer and over breaks though because my classes are based off of long drawn out readings of books, ethnographies, etc. I don’t think I could handle reading for all of my classes plus reading, even if I liked the book, in the spare time that I have.
I was taught to read by my teacher in the first grade. I learned slower than all the other children. I remember being one of the only kids in kindergarten who still didn't know how to read. The kindergarten teacher held up a flashcard with the word 'dog' on it. We were all standing in a line waiting to read the flashcard. When it got to my turn, I still didn't know how to read the word dog from those three letters, but I heard all the kids who went before me say it, so I said the same thing they said. It wasn't till second grade that I fully understood reading and liked it a little more, but that was a phase. The first book I remember liking was Venus Among The Fishes, but I can't remember what it's about.
ReplyDeleteMy mom was a literature major when she was in college and read to me when I was younger in an effort to get me to like reading. I hated reading up until age eighteen when my eye doctor discovered I had esophoria. I figured out that I didn't hate reading. It just strained my eye muscles and hurt when I read. Since then I love reading. I've always loved stories, which is why I love film and once I figured out that I love reading too, I could enjoy stories in that medium as well. I fee like I have so much reading to catch up on that I missed out on before I turned eighteen. Yet, I still find myself watching films more often than I find myself reading for pleasure. Making the text bigger on a kindle or using eye drops helps, but reading for long periods of time still hurts my eyes.
I started learning how to read when I was in kindergarten. My brother, who is 13 months older than I am, approached my parents one day and told them that he wanted to learn how to read. He was one of the few people in the class who didn't know how to read. My parents then decided to bye the program Hooked On Phonics. Hooked on Phonics was a set of materials designed to help students learn to read by first employing phonetics. Although this program has drawn some controversy, it worked for my brother and I. My mother first taught my brother using this method and then she taught me.
ReplyDeleteAlong with this program, my parents also bought computer programs in order to help reinforce what we learned.
I started to learn to read when i was about 3. My mother would read to me in Spanish and i would sound out words with her. I dont consider it reading since I only could recognize a word and know how it sounded. For example i knew how to determine that every time i saw "hola" i knew how i was supposed to say it but i didnt know the letters individually how they sounded.The book i remember reading was El grillo, El Oso y El Niño En El Baño. I would never read on my own it would always be a bonding time for my mother and I, and itd be right before going to bed. Good times.
ReplyDeleteMy abuela sent me a book of fables and fairy tales when I was very young. My father would read me one story every night and I hadn't even realized it was in spanish until I sat down and tried to read it myself. I had learned to read in preschool but that was only in English. It was then my parents taught me how to read in spanish, not any harder for me than learning english. We were living in a tiny 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment on the second floor. Since I had no siblings, my parents bought me books to read because they saw how much I enjoyed reading. It came in handy when we made frequent trips to the immigration offices when I was growing up. I didn't always have a smooth surface to draw on but, I did always have a chair. And in reality, all I ever wanted with those long hours waiting in those rooms filled with people like my parents, illegal immigrants, was a book to take me away on an adventure. I love reading now, especially anything that deals with fairy tales. I see now it has to do with that book of fables that I still have. My parents hate that I read too much fiction and not enough non-fiction; I often remind them it was them that read me fairy tales as a child. But what I do love most is when my father reads to me, even at 20 years old I ask to read me one of the stories in the fables book (ok, its really just Beauty and the Beast). In this version of Beauty and the Beast, when the curse is broken, the Prince emerges from the Beast almost like he'd been wearing it like a costume. I always said thats how Disney should have done it but they went in a showier direction.
ReplyDeleteLearning how to read was very exciting. The very first word I remember pronouncing was "apple". I was about three years old at the time and my aunt was my teacher. At an early age, all I wanted to do was learn. I would constantly ask my aunt "Can I have homework"? I grew up in Buffalo, New York within a very close family. Because my mother was finishing college, I stayed home with my aunts and they were my early childhood teachers. As I grew up, I began favoring math and science instead of reading. Even though I consider myself a good reader, it wasn't one of my favorite things to do.
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