The Joy of Reading

Somewhere up in my attic is a box full of all my old workbooks from grade school. My mother could never bring herself to throw any of our stuff out, and after my son was born, I wanted to keep it so I could compare to the curriculum 34 years later. I haven't pulled the box out yet, but one thing I remember: in 1973, textbook cover art was hideous!

I don't remember much about the process of learning to read. In elementary school, we did "SRAs" and "Pilot Library", but it seems like I was reading right along by then. Probably the ability to read is one of the things that helps cement our earliest memories.

TB is in first grade now, and I was a bit worried that we underachieved over the summer. The kindergarten teacher gave us a few worksheets to go through, which we did, but beyond that we didn't do anything academic. He's six, so I want him to enjoy his free time while he has it.

Two weeks into school, though, he's become obsessed with reading. It's like all the sudden the lights came on, and he's cruising right along. LBB and I are hardly obsessed with cramming our child full of knowledge. Our simple approach has been to read to him nightly, which we have, almost without exception, since he was old enough to sit up.

The other night, he was reading through one of his books and he said he wanted to take it the next day in his backpack so he could finish reading it in school. It ain't Les Miserables, or anything, but he sure is proud. So am I. Here's the first "chapter book" he read on his own. It's probably one of the first books I read, too: