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Being read to as a child...children and books
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i know that i was reading on my own by the start of kindergarten, but because of educational television like sesame street, not because my parents read to me...lol. oh well!
Oh, what wonderful memories! Or, flashes of memory, really. Not specific memories like I have now as an adult. But I know there were piles and piles of Dr. Seuss books in the house (Yay Sneetches!) and there were definitely some Little Golden Books around. My dad was the one that read to me. My dear sweet dad! (Gosh, now I'm feeling guilty--what if my mom read to me, too, but I just don't remember???)I also have vague memories of Sweet Pickles. Does anyone else remember those? Hmmm... I'm gonna have to go look them up.
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I loved the Serendipity books. I found a bunch recently at a yard sale and snatched them all up for my kids.
Do you remember reading Little House on the Praire? I so wanted to be Laura.
Sweet Pickles and Serendipity....wonderful books! What about Mother Goose rhymes too?My mom taught me to read using a flash card system a teacher invented when I was 3 1/2 and by 4 I was reading anything and everything. The joke was that I could read it even if I didn't know what it was saying!! I used to sit and read the newspaper with my grandpa at the coffee shop at 5 and 6 years old and whatever I didn't understand he would explain to me. The waitresses would scold him and tell him a child didn't need to know about politics!! By 8 and 9 I was onto my mom's VC Andrews books and Gone With The Wind and Amityville Horror. I was the epitome of a very precocious child. LOL
I remember reading to my kids every single night,way after they were reading on their own. Since I wanted to go into theatre originally, it was my way of acting! I would assume the personalities and different voices with each book. My kids were mesmorized and I loved being on "stage". When I was a kid I was hooked on Nancy Drew.
I have really vague memories of being read to by my grandmother when my sister was being born...some book that had a cactus in it of all things...but I especially remember playing at a friend's house and discovering these "Gingham" books. They were large, hardbound books about a cloth dolls that had real lives, and each book had a gingham pattern around the border. I couldn't wait to go to her house so I could peek at them.Holli, you were precocious. Amityville Horror...I have memories of that era. My brother came into my room one night holding 3-D glasses that he had taped flashlights behind, so that they looked like the eyes of the red-eyed pig. I was terrified for the longest time!
Meg, I can relate to your feelings of being able to act while reading to your children, assuming different personalities and voices with each book. Such great memories. Eventually they got to the point though, where they got embarrassed about me using different voices and accents. It was the end of an era when that time came. Ah well, there will always be the grandchildren, or maybe I can go read at the library.
Oh that's funny Karey!!! I totally would have died if my brother had done that although he did his fair share that's for sure.......
What would we do without brothers... :) Me oh my.
I don't really remember being read to but my Mom remembers reading to me a lot! I remember reading to myself a lot as a young'n though! I've got a box full of those books in the basement ~ I'll have to take a trip down memory lane next time I'm down there!
Sweet Pickles, Dr. Seuss, and Richard Scarry were favorites. I learned to read at age 4... we had just moved from Indiana to Illinois and I kept pestering my mom to read to me. She as attempting to unpack and had a 3 month old baby to contend with, besides me, so she told me to sound out the words like she had showed me. I did it, and before she knew it I read her a book. From that point on, anything in the house was fair game. I read through our collection of Childcraft books, as well as most of the World Book Encyclopedias. I would just page through those books absorbing information (and scaring the pants off my parents with what I was learning). I love having tons of reading materials at my disposal. I'm trying to do the same for my little guy. He's perfectly happy to sit and flip through books and magazines at age three. I love it!
Sydney that is exactly how I was when I was younger!! I would read these encyclopedia animal fact flash cards my mom got me thru the mail and blow her away with all these things I now knew about koala bars or piranhas.... LOL
I seriously want to be a professional storyteller or "read-out-loud"er or something. I can't to be able to read to my kids.
Holli- at age five I could explain to my mom how a camera worked, because I read it in the encyclopedia. She really freaked out. Then she tried to tell the nun who would be my kindergarten teacher that I could read... and the nun didn't believe her. By first grade I was reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books, and by second I had read Heidi! :-)
Oh yeah Sydney...you and I were on the same reading schedule!! :) My mom has always turned to me and waited for the explanation on what something is or how it works. My mind just seems to absorb everything I read and I'm constantly looking for new things to learn about. I know exactly how you were as a child.... :)Were you in GATE or honors classes as a kid? They wanted me to skip 1st and second grade and go to 3rd and my mom tried it for a month until she learned the "older" girls were taking me into the bathroom and changing my clothes and re-doing my hair...basically treating me like their own doll. VERY CREEPY LOL
Sydney, I loved encyclopedia's as a child. I used to read them on the floor until my elbows were raw. And the Childcraft books...the ones with the spines that line up in every color of the rainbow? I LOVED those. My mom's moving and the set disappeared from her house. I'm in mourning because I hoped to see them lined up nice and neat on my own bookshelves. Ah well.
My parents always read to my brother and I when we were little, and I think that's the main reason that I loved to read and learned to read at such a young age. I remember going into Second grade, and being one of the best readers in my class, and I know that's because my parents always encouraged me to read.
We had the complete line of Raggedy Ann & Andy books that we read. My Mom even made my sister & I a set of dogs. Mine was 12 inces and my sister begged for 18 inch dolls. Then poof on Christmas morning there they were with clothes and of course a candy heart. She actually sewed in a cany heart into the doll, youc could open the little pocket in the heart area and see it! In the Second grade for my book report I did it on the Cookieland book. We had to do a puppet show, shadowbox or something along those lines. I did my puppet show with cookies and had to bring 2 cookies in the shapes of Ann & Andy (yes we still have those cookie cutters and their little dog too) for eveyone in class. Of course this was way back in the 70s when you could still bring homemade food.
I read a lot of Little Golden Books, Dr Seuss, Bernstein Bears, and later, American Girl (my favorites!), Sweet Valley High, Baby Sitter's Club. I went through a dry spell in high school, mostly because I was dual-enrolled in both HS and college, and had no free time. Picked up again after HS, with a lot of Christian fiction and some Jodi Picoult.
I was recently sitting in my dad's office where he is an accountant at a very large firm, having a discussion with him and one of his co-workers. His co-worker, Eric, has a 12-year-old daughter who LOVES to read. My dad said, "Yeah, she's just like Emily. That's what happens to them when you read to them as a kid: they just keep going." The funny part was that he said it like it was a bad thing, like, "That's what happens when you don't take the pacifier away" or something. (They were also making fun of me because I was in a intense literature class that studied over 3000 pages in 3 weeks. I feel so bad for those who don't love reading.) :)
My favorite childhood books were The Hobbit, and the Lord of the Rings books. I liked the stories plus when I've read them when I'm "grown up" it brings back good memories of my childhood and I imagine the characters voices as my Dad use to read them to me (he would make them all sound different).
I also enjoy the Little House books.
I'm the youngest of 9, so mainly my older brothers & sisters read to me. I learned to read with Dr. Seuss & Richard Scarry at age 4. They claim I was reading Reader's Digest back then too (like I remember). But I remember Dr. Seuss! I was reading them again to my daughter. Love those books!Loved Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys, and even the Bobbsey Twins! And LOVED the Little House on the Prairie books and the TV show (seems like eons ago)! I remember wishing the parents on that show were mine - they seemed like perfect parents! And remember The Waltons? To this day, we'll say "Goodnight John Boy. Goodnight Mary Ellen."
It's weird the things you remember from your childhood, isn't it?
I remember my mother reading to me. After she read to me I would then take the book and pretend to read it to her. I remember looking at the pictures, and telling her a story about my uncle (because the story was about a bald man who looked like my uncle). After I could read myself she stopped reading to me, but supported my love of reading by taking me to the library often,buying books etc.
One of my best memories is of my mom sitting on my bed at night. We'd alternate reading pages of Charlotte's Web, the Happy Hollister Series ... I could go on and on.Now that my mom has Alzheimer's and can't read much anymore, I still thank her often for introducing me to a love for books.
Amanda (and others), I have many of the Sweet Pickles books on my shelf here at GR (Vain Vulture is my favorite). I shared this in another group, but I'll share it here, too:Those were my first books, and I remember my mom reading them to me and then I read them to her later. They were moved to the storage building when I got older. About 15 years ago, our home burned. Someone put my boxes of books outside to make room for "important stuff" and they were all ruined. My mom gave me the entire set for my birthday a couple of years ago...she found them at yard sales and thrift stores and assembled the set for me.
I was always read to as a child. My parents were pretty busy but i feel like they always read to me. I always remember my one babysitter would ALWAYS read to me..she would always read to me out of this illustrated children's bible story thing. I started reading on my own pretty early so I never got into my parents reading me chapter books or anything. I did love Little house on the prairie books and the boxcar children. My imagination would run wild..I always would make my little sister pretend to be the people in little house on the prairie with me. :)
Richard Scary!!!My Grandmother was a local librarian in her town...we spent summers there and I hung out with her in the library. I remember reading alot but I am sure that my mom started it all out by reading to me.
Either my mom or grandparents read to me as a child every night--20mins before bed. I can rememebr reading Sweet Pickles, Golden books and Dr. Seuss. When I was about 8yrs old I started to read Ramona Quimby books by Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume books.
re: 26Oh my god. That is just the most dear thing I've ever heard!
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Gone with the Wind (other topics)The Fellowship of the Ring (other topics)
Do any of you have any favorite memories of being read to as a child? If you don't have any at all, what filled your imagination? That is, if you don't mind sharing. I'm going to ask my children the same question, I believe. :)