Hehe, I used to read at the dinner table all the time. My mom was generally ok with it, although it often meant I would sit at the table loooong after dinner was done. I used to have the habit of keeping books around the table that I'd even read before, too- enough to the point that I could open it at and point and know exactly what was going on, so I would just pick it up at dinner, open it anywhere, and start reading.

In 7th or 8th grade, the school system started what they called USSR -- Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading.

Hey, we had that, but we just had SSR. I don't remember what grade. There was also RIF (Reading Is Fundamental), from which I got several free books. Mmm, free books. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher.

My folks were both big readers, as was my older sister. We weren't allowed to read at the table, but everywhere else was fair game. Books were rewards. For example, after a couple of hours of being dragged through the mall to buy clothes I'd get to pick out a new book. This mindset has never really left me.

In fifth grade I had a teacher who made us read as a punishment. Dude. Might as well give me kaluha brownies and gay porn as a reward for being a smartass. Sadly my mom clued her in before I'd gotten through more than one collection of Thurber's short stories.

We never had read-a-thons or the like in my school. Pity.

In fifth grade I had a teacher who made us read as a punishment.

Oh, that's clever. "Let's teach the bright kids to act up, and the struggling ones to hate learning".

I'd read in class all the time, with a book tucked under the desk. I got very good at listening to what was going on while reading so I could answer questions. But, dammit, when you decide the quiet kids need to be in the back and the troublemakers in the front, and you stick one quiet kid next to the book case in the far back corner, you shouldn't be surprised what happens.

The World Book Encyclopedia was my friend.

The read-a-thons we had were at the library, not the school, and they were a summer thing. I think that, if they'd been at the school, I might have felt differently about them.

I think the only school reading contests we had, other than Book-It, which was an external program, was that for about ten days before winter break, there would be a trivia question about a book in the school library, and we could give out answers, and then they'd randomly choose one kid from all the ones with correct answers to get a prize. (The only question I remember right now was "What brand of chewing gum did Sam steal in Lois Lowry's All About Sam?" The answer was Dentyne, and I got it wrong.)

I had one teacher who, if we didn't have a homework assignment done, would tell us to do it during some free time during the afternoon, and then, if we didn't finish it then, we'd have to sit out and finish it while the rest of the class was playing kick ball. She eventually caught on as to why I started missing my math assignments every day.

I don't remember not being able to read. I do remember plently of times reading something (or starting something) of which I comprehended about Zero, due to vocabulary or sentence structure or subtlety of ideas. Some of these I came back to years later and was like, Oh! There is a point to this!

I don't think I ever joined any of the library summer reading initiatives as a child, although I remember colored-in posters on the walls from other children reaching their goals. (For some reason, I do not come from join-y people.) But I can still remember the layout of the children's room upstairs in the Auburn, Maine public library, and the general location of several authors within that layout.

I think this is why I always forget to check my voicemail: brain full of things like library layouts from when I was 10.

I do remember not being able to read, because my parents were pretty clear that they were not reading to me if I could. In fact, they kinda forced me into it, just to avoid having to go through Where The Wild Things Are One. More. Time. I have vague, light memories of having that read to me, probably my earliest memories (well, that and my dad mending the footies of my PJs, and me being surprised even then that he could sew).

I have a very specific memory of not being able to read: I remember in church looking at the board at the front to see what the hymns were going to be, finding the hymns by number, but then not being able to read them. (All my earliest memories are of church!)

Like Nutty, I can't remember not knowing how to read. I recently asked my Dad if he remembers when I started reading, and he said he was pretty sure that I read my hospital chart right after I was born.

Funny, Dad. Then he said he remembers being really sick and in bed when I was 3-ish, maybe younger, and I brought him the newspaper and informed him that if he was too sick to read, I would read it to him.

He was amused, and indulgently told me to go ahead, read him the Sports page, expecting me to make shit up.

So I read the Sports page to him. He was so surprised that he yelled for my Mom, so that she would witness it and not think it was an illness-induced hallucination.