At lunch today, three colleagues and I (we’re English teachers)were discussing how we all became avid readers.
At first, we examined the idea that it happened because our parents read to us. This is certainly true of my brother and me: our mom read us bedtime stories, we went to the library often, and we had lots of books around the house. This has led me to believe that if parents encourage reading, kids will be readers, which has led me to the theory that a proclivity for reading is a learned behavior.
However, two of my co-workers have 5+ siblings, and they say that only they and one or two other sibling were readers, and the rest really weren’t. In both cases, their parents neither encouraged nor discouraged reading. They feel that they read as an escape from a hectic home environment (which was also true for my brother and me), and/or out of sheer boredom. This led us to wonder if there’s there’s a component of brain structure involved here: some people have a natural aptitude for language and would gravitate towards reading without parental or other encouragement.
So my question of you avid readers is: were you ALWAYS a serious reader, even as a kid? Did your parents successfully encourage you to read? Do your siblings read a lot too? If not, why do you think you read and they don’t? And, lastly, do you think some people are just “wired” to be more interested in language and thus to be better and more avid readers?
It’s a combination, like a lot of things. If a child isn’t ready to grasp the concept of marks on paper representing something, it won’t matter what you do. But if he is, he won’t learn unless there’s opportunity. This is unlike standing or walking, which is hard-wired and which every child will do when she’s ready, not before and not later, unless there’s a physical restraint of some kind.
My mother read to my sister and me frequently from the time we were old enough to sit and look at a book with her. Also the house was full of books, so reading was something that everyone did. I learned to read from following the words in the book as my mother read them, and I do not remember being unable to do so. Nobody consciously set out to teach me. (Of course, this was in the old days when dinosaurs roamed the earth; we did not have a television until I was at least five, and neither did anyone else I knew.) My sister was raised in the same environment, but did not start to read until she was normal school age.
I followed my mother’s example, and both my daughters read fluently by the time they were about four years old. Yes, we did have television by then. What I also find interesting, and this is a bit of a tangent, is that one of my daughters also picked up arithmetic before starting school, and that is not a strong point of mine at all. She was just fascinated by numbers. She figured out the concept of multiplication while still young enough to ride in a supermarket cart, and nearly gave me a heart attack when she spontaneously figured out that eight cartons of eggs would contain 96 eggs.
My house still has books in every room, and we are all avid readers.
My mother and grandmother were both readers, and read to me frequently as a child. I was reading by age three, and my appetite for books has increased exponentially with age. I would rather read than do almost anything else.
My sister, on the other hand, hates to read. Both my mother and I read to her as a child, and bought her tempting, interesting books. Nevertheless, she says she would rather get a root-canal than willingly pick up a book. Interestingly enough, I can’t even add, whereas she’s a math whiz.
Maybe it’s a combination of nature and nurture. Some people’s brains seem hardwired to language, and some to numbers. Seeing a parent reading may have something to do with it, but it’s not crucial to a love for books, nor does having a reader as a parent guarantee a child will like to read.
I started reading just before my fourth birthday. At the time, I was an only child, and my mother claims she taught me to read so that I would have something to do. I don’t recall her ever really actively encouraging me to read. I was a shy kid who would sneak a book into family gatherings and go hide in an unused room to read. The joke in my extended family was always “if you can’t find her, look behind the nearest book.”
I am the only really voracious reader out of four siblings. My sister reads for information, one brother reads for pleasure but not often and the other brother only reads when he absolutely has to. I am the eldest by five years, so it’s likely that I read more than they do because they always had siblings to play with instead!
I don’t know if the language aptitude is nature, nurture, or a combination of both. My memory skills are a little off-kilter (near photographic for the written word), and I think that’s probably some genetic thing since one of my brothers has it too. But, in terms of nurture, you have to look at the fact that as the eldest, I talked to adults. The one brother who’s the better reader is closer to me than to the sister who came up between us, so he spent most of his time talking to someone ten years older, too. My sister talked to someone five years older (again, me) and the younger brother pretty much only talked to furniture until he was four.
I have no idea how these answers are going to affect your informal research, but now I’m curious, too.
I was never encouraged to read or read to by my parents. Since I was small I have been an aggressive reader. My home life was miserable and it was definitely the only out I had. Neither of my sisters read for pleasure. I don’t remember them ever reading for pleasure.
I think I read a lot because I’ve found such wonderful books and gotten so much pleasure from them. I can’t imagine not having had writers like Rafael Sabatini, Alexander Dumas, David Weber, or Marion Zimmer Bradley in my life. My sisters and I don’t have any of the same entertainment pleasures. I don’t enjoy gambling, I don’t enjoy drinking, I don’t enjoy running, I don’t enjoy scary films, etc., etc. There’s nothing wrong with the things they take pleasure in, it’s just different for each of us
In the last few years I’ve had too little time to read, no more “read all night this is such a wonderful story” marathons, but I always have one or two books “in process.”
I’ve read to all of my children every night from the time they were about a year old until they were about 12. Only my oldest son is a voracious reader. The two younger boys only read for school assignments.
I love language. I love everything about it–grammar, spelling, writing well, and reading. So maybe it is just a matter of wiring.
Both my parents, and all my grandparents save one, are/were university graduates, which I think probably made the home environment conducive to avid readership. The fact that the Concise Oxford Dictionary had a place, and that place was the middle of my grandparents’ dining room table at all times, probably helped too. I think the sentence I heard the most from the age of five, when I started learning to spell, to the age of twelve, when I skipped the asking and just did it, was “Go look it up.” I can still get distracted by dictionaries.
I think I learned to read around the age of four, and was happily buried in sci-fantasy novels bye age eight (although only upon rereading them years later do I realize how much of the story went over my head then). I think if I had a slightly different temperament, I would have learned to hate reading and dictionaries and all the rest because of the emphasis on them in my childhood, rather than being the bibliophile I am today.
In my case, mostly nurture, some nature. Language comes easy for me (believe it or not). Also, when I was growing up, my mom read aloud to us all the time. She’s an excellent “reader-out-loud”. I still ask her to read articles and such aloud—she’s so good at it. And my dad had the most enormous book collection (especially considering how generally broke we were). A whole wall of books. A whole wall, and more elsewhere!
Another big factor was that we were not allowed to have a TV, (or had a really crappy black and white one, which we were allowed to watch only occasionally). My sisters and I had to find something to do to amuse ourselves, so we read. I remember many summers where my sisters and I would lay on our beds (we all shared one big bedroom) and read and swap books. Just read and read and read. Some nice summer memories.
Now I don’t read as much fiction for pleasure as I did when I was a kid (but I definitely will go on reading jags) but I love books and am always reading something. I just ordered several new Photoshop books and yes, I am loving them!
were you ALWAYS a serious reader, even as a kid?
Yes.
Did your parents successfully encourage you to read?
No
Do your siblings read a lot too?
No.
If not, why do you think you read and they don’t?
It’s my nature. Maybe a personality thing.
And, lastly, do you think some people are just “wired” to be more interested in language and thus to be better and more avid readers?
Yes. - IMHO Some kids are more sports oriented.
When I first started to read, I was so so. There was nothing special about reading at all, at least until grade 2. I had a booklet that was about alligators, which I read it out loud. My mother cried, because she was so happy.
Any way. My father read to me every night, from Green Eggs and Ham to Brothers grimm. My parents were proud, and so was I; because before that my performance in school hadn’t been real great. I would read anything I got my hands on. My brother, who’s 6, has learned how to read, and I was happy to learn he didn’t have any troubles reading. My reading level is higher than most in my grade, to boot.
Are people wired to reading:Some people are drawn to drawing, some to atheltics, people like us who have lots of imagination and enjoyment of literature are drawn to books.
My father reads a lot and has done so for as long as I can remember, my mother rarely reads anything other than magazines. Both I and my sister where being read to while growing up - almost every day and both from books and comics.
I turned out to be an avid reader, I read everything I can lay my eyes on, especially now that I commute approximately 4 hours by train every day.
I go through 3-5 books a week.
My sister though, I doubt if she have read 10 books (except ones required in school).
I think lots of it was nurture. My parents are both voracious readers, and some of my earliest memories are going to the library. Reading for fun was just what you did. My brother and I both read a lot today. (I’m still shocked when I go to people’s houses and there are no books.)
Language does come easily to me, but I don’t know if that’s genetic, or because both of my parents constantly read to me, refused to use baby talk, etc.
I didn’t really get interested in reading until I was an adult and reading became optional.
My oldest daughter (who is 8) has always shown a deep interest in language as a whole since she was tiny. From the time she was little she would want me to teach her a new word every day and she always tried working new words into conversations.
My younger daughter (now 6) almost shows no interest in reading but can make you laugh effortlessly and can be extremely clever.
I think it’s right brain/left brain stuff and how its wired then maybe pathways build from there strengthening it.
Thinking on it, it was more nature then nurture. My mother and father both read to me when I was little (I still have a couple of my books from back then… about 15-17 years ago) and I remember my favourite story being Three Billy Goats Gruff because Dad had such a great voice for it.
I also remember in grade 1 learning quickly (I don’t think I actually read books to myself until I learned in school) and being bored. I often got awards for reading the most books, as well as spelling.
My brother is totally opposite though. He only reads what he has to, and not all the time either. My parents always had to make him sit and read anything because he was behind in his reading levels.
My mother continued to encourage me to read… but my father, Grandma and Grandpa (his parents) decided I read too much. I still get in trouble from them for having my nose in a book. In fact right now I have about a bookshelf and a half’s worth of books in my Grandma’s basement (have yet to move them to my apartment) that she continues to bug me to get rid of. :eek: I only get rid of books that I will never read again, or didn’t interest me like I thought they would in the first place (after generally giving them a 2nd and often 3rd chance). And my way of ‘getting rid’ of them is to trade them in at Wee Book Inn for more books, or donate to hospitals and such.
Despite being nagged on to stop reading and get outside more, I managed to continue to read. Heck my idea of getting outside more is taking a book to the park on a nice day, packing a lunch and riding my bike. But noooo according to them I have to be more active and not sit around ‘doing nothing’. I’m doing something people! I’m exercising my brain!
Note: My grandparents do/did read, though not as much as I do. They prefer ‘real life’ stories and it takes Grandma a couple months to get through a novel whereas I take about a week at most. Though I used to go through at least 1 book a day, sometimes 2 or more depending on length/language/free time
I am the only daughter of an extremely avid reader - my father has so many books that they had to be kept in storage for many years, and he got them out when I was old enough to learn how to read. He claims I taught myself to read with a little help from him when I was three. I’ve since grown to love writing as much as reading (writing - my only talent) so there’s certainly an element of nature in my love of reading, but I can’t help but wonder if it would be such an ingrained part of me if it weren’t for my father and his books. He used to read to me from whatever reading matter he had around, be it The Very Hungry Caterpillar or Gray’s Anatomy.
Interestingly, I taught my younger cousin to read when I was eight and she was four - apparently I made a good job of it, as she was way ahead of her class when she started school. I can’t remember exactly why I did this - but I must have had a good reason. I wanted her to experience the same pleasure, I guess.
Now, I am slowly and torturously teaching myself to read again - in Devanagari. After six months of it, I’m at about the kindergarten level, forcing myself to read roadsigns and newspaper headlines, but it’s very difficult. I’ll never take my literacy for granted again.
My Mother read all of Milne’s Pooh stories to us when we were kids. I’ve specifically thanked her for it in a Mother’s Day card. Reading is one of the single finest habits a person can acquire. It stimulates regions of the brain utilized in synthetic thinking and enables the mind to better resist senility. My father stopped reading books at an early age and is now terrified of Alzheimer’s disease. It’s hard to feel sorry for him. I will read to my children too.
I was an early reader too. My older sister apparently (I have no recollection but this is what I’m told) made a practice of coming home from school and teaching me everything she had learned that day. I think I was reading by age 4. This stopped when I started school and I was never encouraged to read by my parents. My parents did not read to us, I don’t know why.
At around age 6, I was given a garage-sale box of books. Among them were the Trixie Belden mysteries for girls. These books were really my starting point for reading for pleasure. I made that delicious discovery that so many others have made: There are other worlds between the pages of a book. I’ve been an avid reader ever since. Like many others on this board, I’ve read literally thousands of books and hope to read many thousands more.
I began reading to both my sons when they were small. My oldest boy began asking me to decode the text at around age 3. (Not in those terms, of course. More like “Mommy, what does this say?” while pointing to a word on the page.) I took that as an signal to teach him the basics, which he sucked up like a sponge. He too could read almost anything by age 4 and was an avid reader by kindergarten.
My younger son was content to be read to for a longer period. His brother also began passing on reading skills to him but I’d say he really didn’t do much reading on his own until Grade 1 or so. I don’t think it turned his crank that much, until he read a book that he loved, and thus, was hooked. Now he reads everything and bugs me to buy him Popular Mechanics and Discover magazines. No problem, kiddo!
I’m happy and relieved that they both love to read. Their father (my ex) has zero interest, I admit I was almost superstitiously afraid that his disinterest might be passed on to our kids.
It may be a combo of nature/nurture. Plus a dash of happy accident…I really don’t know.
For starters, I come from a highly educated family. Out of my four aunts & uncles, there’s two PhD’s, one Master’s, one Bachelors. My Mom was an English teacher, and Dad earned his PhD in Chemical Engineering. (Mom is smart, but Dad has off-the-charts intelligence.)
So, yes…my sister & I were definitely encouraged to read. I well remember the nighttime ritual when I was very small…first Dad (going-to-bed activities were always in Dad’s sphere, I guess because Mom was with us all day so that was “his time”) would read us a story (as we followed along), then we did a page out of a “Teach Me to Read.” This is where the nature part took over, I think. I remember greatly enjoying the learning-to-read process, and begging my Dad to let us do one more page in the tutorial book. I think if I didn’t have the natural aptitude for language this might have been a less-enjoyable and possibly frustrating process, but it wasn’t…it was pure joy.
So I was reading pretty fluently by the time I was four, and I haven’t put down the books since. One of the proudest moments of my life was reading my first book “with chapters!”
For the record, my sister is also an avid reader, even though her mind was much more math & science oriented than mine. Her poor husband—he and his family are all non-readers. I think it’s still something of a shock for him when the family gets together and instead of sitting around watching tv or talking, we all stick our nose in a book!
I also think it’s a combination of nature and nurture, based my and my sister’s reading habits. Growing up I was very much an introvert, and I suppose found it easier to get lost in a book than in conversation with another person. This is not to say I was completely socially stunted, but that I got nervous around people I didn’t know and was perfectly content to sit with my mother or father and read a book. As a child my parents read to me constantly, encouraging me to fill in words they would deliberately skip over or pause at. I believe this is why I knew my alphabet at 18 months, was able to read shortly afterward, and today never go anywhere without at least one book to read.
My sister, on the other hand, refused to sit still for any amount of time and was certainly more of an extrovert. She’s never cared for reading novels and prefers to devour things like Hello! and various magazines. She’s scarily intelligent in a diabolical sense.
My father is a voracious reader, and usually has several books going at once in addition to the nearly 30 or so daily, weekly, and monthly publications to which he subscribes. My mother also reads, but not in the same volume. Our house is full of books, so there’s never a shortage of things to read. I think I was more “wired” to be responsive to the written word, based on my introversion and natural ability, but growing up in an atmosphere where reading was encouraged and practiced no doubt contributed to my love of the written word.
It was definitly nature in my case. I grew up with my Old World grandmother who told me repeatedly that I would go crazy because I read so much. And she was serious.
Luckily for me I had already read Don Quixote and recognized it as a work of fiction.
My children also seem to show that voracious reading can be a characteristic you are born with. My son reads everything he can get his hands on and he reads all the time. I have to take his books from him when we go outside because he will read while walking down the street. My daughter doesn’t hate reading, but she doesn’t love reading either. It’s just something she does if she feels like it.
But noooo according to them I have to be more active and not sit around ‘doing nothing’. I’m doing something people! I’m exercising my brain!