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.

My mother reads all the time(and she gave me her crime-junkie thing) My dad reads how-to books and used to tell me fiction is a waste of time.

I was what is called a "spontaneous reader." I just started reading when I was about three. My mother read to us at least an hour a day--and she wonders why I have all these books. I remember being very impatient when my mother was reading to my sister and me, because I could think of too many things between the words, plus my sister always wanted the same story over again. My other early reading memory was when I went to kindergarten when I was 4. There were alphabet cards on the walls, and the teacher said, "This is Mr. A and this is Mr. B." I could already read, and no one had ever talked to me like that. I naturally came to the conclusion that the teachers were insane, and for some reason my parents had been forced to lock me in a room with crazy people for half a day.

When we were reading in class, I rarely knew where the place was, because I was always reading ahead. By the second grade, I spent most classes reading with the book between me and the desk or inside the textbook. By the 10th grade, when I was competing for being the world's most annoying smartass, I just put the book on the desk and read openly.