I am in love with books. I'm kinda addicted. I don't know how old I was when I learned, but I can't remember not knowing how. I was that kid in class who rushed through her work so she could whip out her book and read. I was the big sister who conned my little sister into washing, rinsing, AND drying the dishes so my hands would be free to hold the book I was reading out loud to her. To this day, I can't enter a book store without buying something.
Just as my preacher's wife mother jokes that she thought she would have Christian babies...I just knew I would have readers. I loved it...they would love it. I would read to them in the womb, in the crib, in my bed at night. And they would crave words like I do. And in the beginning it worked. Hillary would close herself into her bedroom at two years old and pore over her picture books for an hour. She learned to read without any help from me.
Then Parker came along. He loved being read to... but he'd rather crash his toy cars than "pretend read" Goodnight Moon to me. When he got to Kindergarten, we had to study his letters and sounds at night. In first grade, he fell further behind. At the end of the year, his teacher seemed worried. I was taking a college class at the time on teaching reading...so I tutored him all summer, creating lesson plans using comic books and Lego.com to try to interest him. We instituted "family reading time" where all four of us sat in the living room and read silently from our own books for 20 min every day. Second grade started, and he seemed okay...crisis averted.
Even though the kids grew old enough to read to themselves, I continued to read out loud to them. I just enjoyed the time, sitting together, sharing the story and talking about it. I guess I was doing "book club" before it was trendy! Then I read Jim Trelease's The Read-Aloud Handbook and was thrilled to be given permission by an expert to keep indulging my passion. He says you should read aloud even to your teenagers. (And I do!)
Now that we know about Parker's dyslexia, those reading struggles make sense. The lady who tested him said that his case was moderate, and he would be much further behind if we hadn't exposed him to the stories verbally. Is it pathetic that I felt guilty for doing so much academic intervention in his early years? If I hadn't been such a stubborn reader, maybe we would have caught his dyslexia earlier. I know...crazy...but that's how my mind runs!
Anyway, now Parker enjoys reading by listening to audio books. And I feed my addiction by leading a book club with kids from the youth group at church. When the most faithful "clubbers" turned out to be middle school boys, it hit me that Parker could enjoy our book club even though he didn't like to read. Because he definitely likes to discuss the characters, themes, and nuances of the story. Through some small miracle, it's become a family thing, with me reading the book aloud to Yancy and both kids, and all of us attending the book club together.
For Mother's Day, Parker gave me a book. And not just any book...one he made himself. It was five short paragraphs about memories he has of the two of us. It is sweet and funny, but the line that made me cry was "I remember when you got me to listen to Feather Boy. I didn't think I'd like it, but you turned me to it. Thank you for all the books you've turned me to."
Believe me, Parker...it's been my pleasure.