“I don’t like to read.” This has always been my story and it has only been in the last few years that I have realized that it is a tale of fiction: it’s simply not true.
I was a procrastinator as a young person. I have always preferred completing a task and being done with it, not pecking at it along and along. (Pecking at tasks has now become my way of life out of necessity and I see great value in it.) I was perpetually behind on reading my book report book. When it came to homework verses projects, I was an acer but not a pacer. My mother came to the rescue several times and read the final chapters to me faster than I could have read them myself. (She had a soft love approach. My approach has been slightly tougher so I shelved that idea.)
I remember being called on to read aloud from the South Carolina history book in the eighth grade and reading “striped bass” (as opposed to striped treble?). Give me a break. I’m a musician, not a fisherman. Being laughed at made me more careful not to trust my first impression when it comes to words. Even the word “read” can be read “read.” See what I mean?
I have since realized how enamored I am with words. (Oh, look. “Enamored” has “amor” in it. That makes sense.) No wonder puns are my favorite jokes. My mother always had a huge dictionary by her chair and used it regularly as she did crossword puzzles or investigated unfamiliar words. I suppose this is where I got the novel idea of being a lifelong student.
I am a slow reader because I examine words carefully, typing them in my head, noticing the spelling, double taking to be curious of their use, meaning, and pronunciation. If I do something, I do it thoroughly, beginning to end and all in between. I don’t want to miss anything. What if I speed-read over a “not”? I would take the opposite meaning of the whole sentence! My ability to focus on minutia is one of my best strengths but it makes for a slow reader (and could also cause personal and relationship problems but that’s for another day). Learning to sight-read piano music during choir rehearsals made it obvious that I couldn’t go back, linger, or second-guess. The beat goes on and you must go with it. This has helped me to make my eyes move along in books at a steady pace and force myself not to look back. (That’ll preach.)
As a diligent student in high school and college, I always had more than plenty of reading to do. There was no way that I would choose to read in my rare spare time. Then as a mother of small children, my go-to me-time activity would have been to go-to bed!
For these reasons, I believed that reading was just not my thing. But slowly I have realized that some of my fondest memories are centered around books.
Growing up, many teachers read to my class but it was Mrs. Edens in fourth grade that captured my attention. She read to us at the end of each day. I remember her reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Charlotte’s Web, and The Boxcar Children. I was completely caught up in another world and hanging on her every word.
When I think back to elementary school, library time was always a highlight of the week. This was a rare school moment when we weren’t asked to be the same; we could be ourselves with our own individual interests. We chose our own books rather than working from identical books. My memory was jogged about this when I recently looked at my fifth grade yearbook and saw that I was a library aide. (What a missed opportunity. They should have called us pages!) Hmmmm. Organizing. Books. It was a clue to who I really was.
Come to think of it, my school libraries and public libraries were favorite places of mine. Ahhh, the Hartsville library! It was my first non-school library experience complete with card catalog and library smell. It made me, a child, feel like a citizen of the community. And then there was the Sumter library which I loved for a different reason. If your boyfriend is always your school project partner, then I guess you have to work on it periodically at the library together and since there’s a sandwich shop next to the library, you could take a much needed break for sustenance which might feel like a date even before you’re allowed to but it’s not technically. Sigh. Love and books. I mean love OF books!
PC: Jud McCranie CC BY-SA 4.0
Fast forward to the stay-at-home-mom chapter of my life. My first child was an only child for four and a half years. Very early in his life, we began the habit of booking it over to the local library every week. He developed a great relationship with Mrs. Davenport, the children’s librarian, and she would read to him at the little table while I chose books from lists (big surprise) I had created from my research. We took bags of books home each week and read through the stack at least once a day. This continued with my other two children with much more camaraderie and reading to each other. These are some of the fondest memories of my life and I type this with happy tears in my eyes.
When my children were all in school, I volunteered to read to their classes. I remember reading The Castle in the Attic and Understood Betsy to the upper elementary classes. Many of the children enjoyed it like I did when I was their age. It was a win-win-win: the teacher got a break, the kids got a treat, and I got the joy of taking their imaginations on an adventure.
This turnabout of events—going from despising reading to enjoying it— is one of those lessons life teaches you but only over time and with reflection.
The first lesson I see is that your passion may be revealed early in life but you may not accept it because you feel unskilled in that area. I remember watching my mother’s fingers move over the piano keyboard and just being amazed at how she knew which keys to press. I was fascinated but thought I could never do that myself. Learning takes time but it miraculously happens every day. Just because a skill is not easy now doesn’t mean it never will be. This shows us how important it is to continuously encourage good things in others: those lofty dreams are bound to become their reality.
Something which keeps catching your attention is probably a true passion of yours. I used this technique in picking out my china pattern when I was engaged. Every time I would look through a tableware brochure or see the “great wall of china” in a department store, my eye would stop at the same pattern over and over and I would gasp. I eventually knew it was mine.
As teachers, we feel like the bad guys, forcing children to learn things they resist learning, but actually these skills are the very things that will give them the abilities to pursue their passions. Mrs. Edens knew that she was showing us the enjoyment side of learning to read and write. Her mature long view won out over my immature short view and now I am grateful to her.
We want to return to those moments that made us feel at peace. As my interests were allowed to show in choosing my own books in elementary library, I felt seen. After Mrs. Edens asked me to do my work all school-day long, she recognized my need for refreshment and gave me a lovely story. I wouldn’t trade anything for the memories of being pressed up against my Momma’s side as she read to me, hearing her sweet tones and experiencing a book with her. Whatever is going on in our lives, we can escape to another world in a book. It’s safe and the conclusion is already worked out and within sight. I guess when I think about it, reading to me equaled love, and I have found myself sharing my love in the same way.
If my junior-high self could see me now, I would laugh at me. I’ve grown up, raised my family, and finally have free time to do anything I want to do, so what do I do? READ and write BOOK REPORTS. Voluntarily! Life is funny.
Next blog post: The Books I Read in 2020.