Raising your children to be readers starts with parents who are readers. We thought that the best way to introduce you to the Raise A Reader Blog and to ourselves would be to share who we are and how we fell in love with reading.
The library was always my favorite place to go. I have a vivid memory of sitting in a little green carpeted rowboat in the middle of the children’s section of our local library reading In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak and giggling at the nudity. I don’t think I could read yet, but I still loved books. If that library was still standing, I could take you to the shelves that held the book about Nadia Comaneci, the oversized book about The Muppet Show, and my favorite A Pocket For Corduroy by Don Freeman.
I can’t remember my parents ever setting rules about what I could or couldn’t take out of the library or how many books I could have. If I could carry the books to the car, it was fair game.
As a child I loved books, but my favorite thing about them wasn’t reading itself but having my sister read to me. Luckily my older sister loved books even more than I did. Before I could read chapter books independently she read them to me cuddled in her bed, probably way past our bedtime. These are my very favorite childhood memories.
For me reading was and still is all about satisfying my curiosity. I want to know more about the characters in books, know more about the worlds authors create, and more about whatever topic I have decided to be interested in that week. That started as a child and still holds true decades later.
This is what I want to share with readers of this blog. I want your children to look back at reading and books with the fondness I do. I am a former preschool teacher with a degree in Elementary Education focused on early literacy. I also have experience as a reading tutor and in early childhood education curriculum development. More importantly I am a mom to a six-year-old who was an early reader and a two-year-old who is trying her hardest to catch up to her big brother.
Raising a reader can be a challenge, but with the tips, expertise, and the parent-to-parent advice we hope to share, you won’t be tackling the challenge by yourself. Let us help you create a family that loves reading.
