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One of my earliest childhood memories is my Dad reading aloud to my family. From October through April my dad read a book aloud to us almost every night of the week. I am not talking about a cute little children’s story, he read full length historical fiction. Books of character, romance, trouble, and triumph, with plots of honesty, betrayal, and loyalty, is but a brief description of the books that were read to me as a child. Reading is an avenue to knowledge. For a child to want to read and learn through the medium of stories, they need to be exposed to reading on a consistent and frequent basis. When I was younger other moms used to ask my mom, “How do you get your children to read?” Getting us to read was never a problem; in fact reading too much without having done our homework and chores sometimes was a problem! My siblings and I were read to almost every day of our lives. There was one book we read every day, but we were often in the middle of others. Mom read to us as part of our homeschool curriculum, she read science, history, historical biographies, and books that taught character. Young children have incredible brain capacity. Reading to them from a very young age encourages them to be able to learn through 3 different ways: seeing, feeling, and hearing. It is well known that the more senses you use to learn something the longer you retain that learning. I have a nephew who is about 21 months old. He has been read to since he was born and his attention span is incredible for his age. He will sit with me and listen to books for as long as an hour. His list of favorites is too long to count and I doubt not that he will be reading on his own sooner than the average child. I realize that not every child that is read to will have a long attention span, but many will have a noticeably longer attention span than the average. Instilling a love of reading in children is not necessarily something that will look the same in every person or family. In my case and in a few other families I knew growing up, the approach was to read aloud, have large numbers of books available, make reading a priority of daily life, with bedtime stories, after dinner family times, reading first thing in the morning, and reading for school. All of these things were a part of my life from infancy. My siblings and I love to read. Some of us love it more than others, however books are important in all our homes. Children who have large exposure to books learn to be critical thinkers. They learn how to take information from a page and apply it in real life scenarios. Reading is a huge part of my life. I cannot count the number of books I have read, but without my parents love of reading I may never have known how much happiness is found by reading a book. I may not have acquired the necessary skills that are needed to be able to learn well. Reading has broadened my mind and helped me to learn about people, cultures, countries, food, fellowship, and more! Without my background of extensive reading I probably would not have been interested in teaching English. Having learned to love reading I have a desire to impart that knowledge to others. I have helped to teach nieces and nephews how to read and some day I hope to have my own children to teach. Since I don’t have my own yet, I look forward to teaching children around the world, the joy of reading, and the unique intricacies of the English language.
