My parents did the flashcard thing too, but what can you expect with two teachers? Mostly, though, I remember them doing that with my brother.
My parents were both teachers. Mom was a K-8 expert and Dad was a high school English teacher. They didn't do the flashcard thing, though--in fact, I don't think I learned to read until I was taught in school, first grade. I must have been about 6. Once I got started, though...hoo boy. Only child, lived in the middle of the woods with no neighbors my age. Read in the car, at dinner, in bed under the covers with a flashlight, outside ("play outside" translated to "read outside" for me), in planes, on trains, in class behind the book the teacher wanted me to read... Yep. Addicted completely, me. I've always looked forward to long trips for that reason--catch up on reading! Woot!
I love that the NYT is publishing Gatsby serially! I teach it that way to my lowest level juniors (read one chapter every class or so), and they love it. It would drive me batty because I'm conditioned to read a lot in one sitting, but for these kids who can barely get through a magazine article without losing interest and forgetting what it's about, the serial approach to literature works well.
Driving vacations were definitely time to read in the car in my family. We also read books aloud to each other.
I remember the driving trip to the Lake District and Scotland where I was really into Tolkien. And memorising (and reciting, natch) the poetry. I'm thinking my parents were reconsidering their decision to allow me to read about halfway through that vacation.
I always read above my grade level. I make no pretensions now to having
understood
above my grade level, but there you go. I sure thought I was clever at the time. It just means I have quite the list of books to reread to see what the hell they were talking about.
The last time I was with my father's side of the family, my grandmother and I were recommending Agatha Christie to my cousin's 10 year old daughter -- she's a big reader, and that was the age when both of us (me and Grammy) had read her. Her mom was a little suspicious, because they are "grown-up" books, but we assured her it would be OK. Nothing like indoctrinating the next generation of mystery readers...
Last time I tried reading Gatsby, I was in eighth grade, in a school I hated, and reading that book just got to be a massive power struggle. I kind of like the serial approach. I kind of wish it was being done with a book that had originally been published serially, because I'd be kind of curious to see how it played out, being read that way, but Gatsby seems like a nice choice. I think I'll try to pick up a copy of the Times today.
It was while I was still in highschool, a private exchange. I lived with a family there. Everyone except the teachers and the nurses were employees of the railroad. It was an interesting time. The isolation was bizarre and the differences between us and the other kids were pretty jarring at times. We all got along, but this wasn't my life, so I still focused on doing my school work and what was gonna happen in three months when I went back. For most of the kids living in Cook, they didn't care about school and they had no real thoughts about the future. Boys assumed they'd start working for the railroad at 18 or so and girls assumed they marry and have kids.
Interesting. (Not surprised about the attitude of the other kids. A lot of the people Bec went to school with felt much the same way. I think many rural schools need a Dawn on staff.)
I can read in the car as long as there aren't any buildings or trees close enough to cast shadows across the page when it's bright out. Not much gives me motion sickness, but constantly shifting shadows across a page of text does, big time.
I'm probably not the only one here who can't resist cracking a book open at a red light on the way home from the bookstore or library, huh?
Heh. I had a similar experience: my mother was bragging to her uncle that I was already reading at age 3. He figured I'd probably just memorized the stories they'd read to me hundreds of times, so he sat me down with the newspaper and asked me to read it to him. So I did.
My grandmother found me laboriously sounding out the names of dinosaurs in her coffee table book,
Marvels and Mysteries of the World Around Us,
when I was barely 4. She told my parents I could read. They didn't believe her until they tested me on a book I'd never seen before.
Oh. Dear. God.
And I hate listening to books, too. It's too slow. But I'd totally be there for that one.
I'm probably not the only one here who can't resist cracking a book open at a red light on the way home from the bookstore or library, huh?
People don't keep a book in their car specifically for that purpose?
