Reliving my Early Reading Experiences

[Mandy]

Just how important were our early reading experiences? What was it about the books that we were able to hold in our hands and spend time with that helped us become the readers and creative thinkers that we are today?

For those of you who were starting on your journey as independent readers in the UK back in the early 1970's, take the time to visit www.ladybirdprints.com (http://www.ladybirdprints.com). I was overwhelmed by the detail of the memories that I have and the strength of feeling that remains for those simple, but beautifully illustrated Ladybird books.

As I clicked through each image from Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, I realised just how powerful those early reading experiences were (I can't tell you how disappointed I was to discover that the website only holds the front cover for my favourite Princess and the Pea!) and it made me wonder which early reading experiences will remain with the children of today. I realised that my memories of each image (down to such details as the way the light fell on Sleeping Beauty's face as she lay on her bed and the perfect recollection of the folds of purple silk decorating the Prince's hat) were so clear, after all this time, that I must have spent a great deal of time reading and re-reading my favourite books.

I have come to the conclusion that I became a Reader when I was allowed to discover books that meant something to me, as an individual, and was given the time to foster a great love of reading for myself.

As an educator, I thought about the potential of using my personal early reading experiences as a way of focussing my students' attention onto reading - pupils, parents and staff could be encouraged to share their experiences and a range of texts could be celebrated, from favourite fairy tales, fascinating factual books and text-rich computer games.

I'm not sure about the copyright issues involved, but I can't wait to use these illustrations (or illustrations brought in or drawn by the children themselves) on my Activboard to bring some of these stories and powerful feelings back to life. Children love to see us as fellow learners and will enjoy sharing our passion for reading texts written for and loved by children past and present.

[Stuart Collins]

I loved reading while I was growing up. In school we weren't given interesting stuff to read, just a set of book at levels which weren't really fun or stimulating. It just involved progressing through levels of technical difficulty which I think is both the right and wrong way of doing it. Increase difficulty but also make the subject matter interesting. (I think the books were ginn books, all I remember is that when I got to level 13 the school had to buy the next level of books for me).

Anyway, I remember being about 6/7 and my mum read me the hobbit of all things. I then read it myself, then I tackled lord of the rings. I got through that when I was about 10-12, which is pretty good going, though I didn't understand a lot of it at the time, but have worked my way through it about 3 times since. I also loved the narnia books (I love the new films btw) and there's a special place in my heart for enid blytons secret island, again I had the older book that used to be hers, but it's a fun kids book about survival and independance

http://www.enidblyton.net/secret-series/the-secret-island.html

I've always stuck with the fantasy/fiction thing, and can always be found in front of the incredibly small science-fiction section in most book stores.

I think in there are a lot of books out there, and a good teacher could probably develop a series of books that rise in technical difficulty, it might be a more interesting way of developing reading skills.

[davidlloyd]

Hi Mandy

It is very interesting how how and what we read influences us.

I don't have much recollection of early reading although I did love Noddy. I recall reading Enid Blyton's family adventures e.g. the Queen Elizabeth Family where a family crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Elizabeth - very white, mioddle calss English of the 1950s. I remember the book said that you could order any food you liked on the Queen Elizabeth so I wanted to see if they would serve cheese and HP (brown) sauce sandwiches:eek:

In adolescence I read to escape my surroundings and spent a lot of time reading books that were about discrimination after some American friends bought us a subscription to a US magazine that did what seemed an very explicit series on the Holocaust (we're talking late 1960s, early 70s) and so I went on to read about the US civil rights movement amongst other things.

To this day I'm still a passionate (and dogmatic :D) supporter of civil rights and tend to take a leftish position on such things. And even though I now read a lot of fiction, it tends to be about people who are outside the mainstream or who live in different cultures, so I read a lot of foreign authors.

[Jes2G]

What's strange is that my early reading experiences were great! We (my siblings and I) used to come out of the library with arm loads of books like every week during the summer. My mother used to always find reading programs for us like read x amount of books and get a free x. I used to love reading, but I'm not sure what happened in middle school. I think it was 7th grade that my reading love wained. That was my first year at the school I graduated from, and it was a very hard year for me. The school is a magnet school, so the curriculum was very accelerated and there was always a lot of work to be done (everything about that school was college prep.). I think I just got very overwhelmed with the work and didn't have time to read. And then the things that I HAD to read were not enjoyable. It became more of a chore...and to this day, sadly, reading is a chore :(. Luckily I'm getting back into the habit of reading. I'm supposed to read at least 10 pages a day. It's manageable, but sometimes that's a chore too. We'll see how I fare this time next year! [clap]

[davidlloyd]

And many schools still haven't realised how easy it is to put pupils off reading or science or history or .........................

[Jes2G]

Oh yes. I heartily agree. History was never my fav, but I used to like science a little.......not anymore!! Grammar was something I always wanted to learn, but it was never taught correctly (in my opinion) to me, so I never really grasped it until college (when the teacher actually taught it in a way I can understand it). Now I LOVE grammar! I'm turning into a bit of a nerd now because I'm always seeing/hearing incorrect grammar and want to correct it LOL.

[kevhogg]

As a Beacon Series learner reader, I can support David's observation with my own experience at Teacher Training College:

"And many schools still haven't realised how easy it is to put pupils off reading or science or history or ........................."

Fred, the senior education lecturer, in his first lecture issued the instructions, "Whatever else you do, for God's sake don't put children off anything. If you don't like it - your children will not like it either. Leave it alone and let somebody else who does like it teach them it another year!"

Mind you I don't think he had reading in mind - and he did pre-date the National Curriculum by a couple of decades - at least.

Kevin

[davidlloyd]

May be I should amend it to 'Many policy makers, administrators and schools ...'!

How right Fred was. Funny how the obvious is always ignored by the powers that be.

When I first started teaching (5 year olds) I wanted to team teach with a teacher in the class next door. She was much better at teaching maths than I was, and I was better at IT and science. But we weren't allowed.:mad:

[Lara]

Mandy - thanks for the Ladybird link! Like you I must have read those books so often - I now know where the picture in my head of how Rapunzel's parents' garden and Puss in Boot's outfit come from! It's strange as I'd never thought about where 'my' versions of fairytales come from, even though I often feel it's a shame when the children say 'that's not right' if a version of a fairytale differs from the Disney cartoon. i guess I'd have been the same if someone told me a version that wasn't from the experts at Ladybird!

[Alison]

David,

That's interesting. We're actually encouraged to team teach to share specialisms, or even swap classes to ensure quality teaching. I've spent the last few years going in to other classes and taking lessons to demonstrate how ICT can be integrated or to show how to manage a class using laptops. Our headteacher is very supportive and interested in the idea of exploiting teachers with specialisms. Guess we're just lucky! :D

[davidlloyd]

Hi Alison

I think our head thought we would scheme against her! But we did that anyway:D:D

[Alison]

LOL!!!:D:D:D