I don’t really remember much from learning how to read, but I do know that I’ve always enjoyed reading because it’s a very private experience. When you pick up a book, you are for all intents and purposes, the only person reading that specific copy at that specific time, and your interpretations of the text are private if you wish to keep them so. Unlike a movie, which you see in a theater with 50+ other people, a book is personal. While I always valued reading for that experience, I never saw the advantages of using reading, and literacy in general, as a way of connecting your ideas to a larger audience until I was in high school.
I took Speech class during the summer, because it was only 3 weeks instead of a whole semester. It was essentially your typical speech class expect for one project, which is to date the best assignment I’ve ever had to do. Students were told to bring in one of our favorite children’s books, and to read it to the class. While this seemed like the most basic assignment—to read a book we didn’t even write, full of simple sentences and pictures—but we were being graded on our ability to convey the love and excitement we felt about that book to an audience of people who were hearing the story for the first time. I chose Dinosaur Bob, easily one of my favorite books of all time, and if you haven’t read it you should, but that’s not the point. Watching my peers reading books that they loved, and seeing how much fun everyone was having made me realize how much of a gift literacy is. It isn’t just useful because we can read texts that transport us to different places or make us laugh, it’s useful because we can use this ability to read to share the stories we love with those who haven’t heard them yet, or who don’t have the ability to read themselves.
I really appreciated reading this. I like how your favorite children’s story was not mentioned until you hit college in this chronological account. Like you I have love the intimacy of reading and the privacy it gives you. I like how you mentioned the joy and laughter that books can bring people. It reminded me of why I love to read and why I am glad that I am self proclaimed “literate.”
It’s funny how complicated children’s books can be. When you read them to an audience, you have to engage the emotional content and deliver it in an exaggerated way. Books are where many children begin to experience and explore emotions and situations they haven’t yet encountered. While you might read the words well, projecting their emotional content takes a special type reading, beyond the printed text.
This was a great, lighthearted post that really put a smile on my face. It’s great to see how much people connect with stuff from their past like that. I feel like people really take for granted how important reading has always been to them, until you’re forced to find something from the past. I’m also a big fan of your choice in favorite book. Mine was called “If the Dinosaurs Came Back.”
I love this post! What a cool project! I definitely would have loved to be there as well, watching everyone read favorite childhood books. That is definitely a favorite memory as a child, having a grown-up read a story to me and read it with the different voices and with excitement. Reading is so important from the very beginning and everyone seems to forget until they come across a book from childhood.