The Funnies, a Flip Side, and a Pot of Gold

 

Growing Into a Love of Reading

I wrote this for a class I'm taking but I liked it enough to share with you. More because I was thinking of everyone's reading journey. How this adapts, changes, and influences who we are. I wonder what your reading story looks like? I would love to see Mark write this paper; his taste and journey with books has always influenced who he is. Fascinating!

When I think about how I learned to read, I have to admit that I do not remember a specific moment when everything suddenly came together. There was no particular day when I remember thinking, "Now I can read!" Instead, I think reading happened slowly and organically. I learned a few words, then a few more, and eventually those words began connecting into sentences, stories, and entire books. Looking back, I realize that I had been building the foundations of reading long before I understood what I was doing. Someone was always reading to me. I was listening to stories, following along with words, looking at pictures, making up my own characters and adventures, and discovering that books could take me somewhere else. My own childhood seems to be a good example of how those experiences can happen naturally through family, school, and everyday life.

My parents were some of my first literacy models.

They read bedtime stories to me, and those experiences helped make books a familiar and enjoyable part of my life. My grandmother was also an important influence because she was an English teacher and loved to read to me. I remember sitting with my grandfather while he read the "funnies" in the Sunday newspaper. At the time, I probably did not think about what I was learning from these experiences. I simply enjoyed being with my grandparents and listening to the stories. However, these experiences were teaching me that written language had meaning and that reading could be enjoyable. The Foundations for Reading article emphasizes the importance of adults reading to children and providing opportunities to engage with literature. I had many adults who modeled that enjoyment of literacy for me.

One of my favorite early literacy memories involves Disney records. I would listen to Disney stories on records and follow along with the book that was included in the center of the record cover. I remember listening to stories such as Snow White, Peter Pan, Cinderella, and Mary Poppins.

I loved hearing the stories while looking at the pictures and following along in the book. This was probably one of the ways I began connecting the spoken word with the printed word. I was not sitting down for a formal reading lesson, but I was experiencing many of the foundations of literacy described in the article, including oral language, print awareness, and an appreciation for literary forms.

My teachers and librarians also played an important role in my literacy development. I remember one teacher reading Grimm's fairy tales to our class. Those stories were quite shocking to me! They were darker and more intense than some of the children's stories I had experienced, and I remember being fascinated by them. That experience taught me that books could make me feel different emotions and could take me places I had never been. I think that is one of the reasons I have always loved getting "sucked into" a good book. When I find a book that captures my attention, I want to read it from beginning to end because reading feels like an adventure.

I also loved creating stories of my own. I had an imaginary friend for a while, and I loved exploring my neighborhood and playing in the playhouse in my backyard. I would make up stories and imagine different possibilities. One of my favorite memories is seeing a rainbow and walking through the alley for quite a while because I was convinced that if I followed it far enough, I would find the pot of gold. I think this memory is connected to literacy because loving stories and wanting to create stories are closely connected. Before I could write my own stories, I was already creating them in my imagination. Literacy was not just about learning to recognize words; it was about learning that stories could transport me somewhere else.

As I got older, books became increasingly important to me. In elementary school, around fourth grade, I discovered The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I was fascinated by the idea that the children could open a wardrobe and discover an entirely different world on the other side. The magical quality of the story stayed with me. I loved the idea that an ordinary object could lead to an extraordinary adventure. I also loved The Secret Garden. The story of a girl discovering the secret garden and the boy who was sick kept me reading because I wanted to know what would happen next. Both books made reading feel like entering another world.

My mother did not particularly enjoy going to the library, which is something I still do not understand because I have always loved libraries. Instead, she would drop me off at the library while she ran errands and then return to pick me up when she was finished. Those visits opened my eyes to an enormous variety of books. I could explore whatever interested me, and I remember especially enjoying art books. I can still remember seeing a book about Georgia O'Keeffe and being mesmerized by the artwork. This was an important part of my literacy experience because I began to understand that books were not only stories. They could also teach me about art, artists, ideas, and the world around me.

By middle school, my reading interests had changed again. I discovered Judy Blume and read all of her books. Her stories made being that age feel tolerable. It was almost as if the characters were friends who could say the things I could not say myself, and I was relieved that they were saying them. Her books helped me realize that reading could help me understand my own experiences as well as the experiences of other people.

In high school, my relationship with literacy began to expand beyond simply reading books. I helped start a literary magazine called The Flip Side. The name came from the fact that you flipped the book upside down to read the other half. This was my first experience with creating something larger for an audience. I was also very interested in music during high school, so reading and listening closely to lyrics became another form of literacy for me. I became interested in the meaning behind the words and how music could communicate ideas and emotions. Although much of the reading I did in high school was connected to homework, I was beginning to understand that literacy could take many forms.

College opened another door for me. I took a literature class that introduced me to an entirely different way of reading. I began to understand metaphors and how a story could be viewed from a variety of points of view. Reading was no longer simply about understanding what happened in a story. I became interested in exploring what the author's true meaning might be and how that meaning could be different from what we see on the surface. I learned that two people could read the same story and come away with different interpretations. In many ways, reading became an exploration rather than simply an answer.

When I look back at my literacy experiences, I realize that I did not learn to read in one particular moment. I grew into reading through being surrounded by stories. My parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians, books, music, and even my own imagination all contributed to that growth. The Foundations for Reading article explains that successful readers need to understand the alphabetic system, develop background knowledge and strategies for gaining meaning from print, and eventually read fluently. My experience reminds me that underneath those skills is something equally important—the desire to engage with language and stories. I was given many opportunities to listen, imagine, explore, and eventually create. Those experiences not only taught me how to read; they taught me to love stories, seek meaning, and eventually become a storyteller myself.

Hope you're having a wonderful Sunday! Cheers, Eileen