Literacy Vignette

To this day I still have one of the first books that I ever read.  The spine is broken and some of the pages are close to falling out, but I can never part with it.  I am a little angry with myself for having written in it with crayon, but now I realize that this was the beginning stages of my reading and writing experience.  You may be wondering what the name of the book is.  Actually it is two books in one:  Little Peewee: or Now Open the Box by Dorothy Kunhardt and Sylvester:  The Mouse with the Musical Ear by Adelaide Holl.

          

 

This book actually taught me two elements of my reading development.  Before I could even read, I would spend a long time just looking at the pictures and creating my own story based on them.  Then once I started reading, I would read these two stories over and over again.  Without realizing it I was developing both reading comprehension and fluency. 

I was always pretending to be like my mom from dressing up, to playing house so it was just natural for me to want to read like her.  I would ask my mom to tell me the words that I didn't know and sometimes, if she was in another room, I would call out the letters to her and she would tell me the word that I just spelled.

As a young girl I could always remember seeing my mother with a book in hand and engrossed in whatever it was that she was reading.  She would also get so excited whenever new books arrived in the mail.  Actually, at one point in her life she belonged to three book clubs, but over the course of about 10 years she narrowed it down to one!

One day I asked my mom if I could receive a book in the mail, too.  She let me look at the children's section of her book catalog.  I was older now and my love of reading was really taking off.  The first book I ordered from the catalog was Little House on the Prairie.  I loved the television series having never missed an episode, so I couldn't wait to get the book.  Eventually, I received the entire series!  Then it was on to the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series followed by any book written by Judy Blume.

Now I no longer have to pretend to be like my mother.  I have developed a reading library almost as extensive as hers!