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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999 Reading 351-100 Hey Diddle Diddle Ancient Mariner Karlisa Alexander Reading 351-100 Dr. Cindy Boettcher June 10, 1999 Literacy Paper Hey Diddle Diddle Ancient Mariner I feel certain; knowing my mother /the extent with which I do that my literacy 1. journey began far before I can recollect. My earliest memories withFFgard to being read to, are Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, which she (my mother) recorded so that I might learn and enjoy them in her voice, as I stayed with my grandmother prior to attending preschool. I remember my grandmother reading, and doing lots of crossword puzzles, but I don't remember her reading to me. Although, I did have access to many children's books at her house, as well as writing materials: paper, coloring books, crayons, pencils, etc. My mother, a single parent, worked nights during much of my preschool years. I must have been about three reciting nearly the whole black and white checker - boarded Mother Goose book which; now and tattered almost thirty years later, my own daughter, Kourteney, 4, recites from. I also remember having memorized poems frgrn a very large book of Children's poetry that was illustrated by Joan Walsh Angle and. I / �/ remember her illustrations because I grew to love them well into primary school. One of my favorites prior to learning to read was a poetry book of Robert Louis Stevenson's. I read to my own daughter those poems now from the same book. (I will never be able to express enough gratitude to her for saving those books. Reading them to Kourteney gives me the greatest pleasure, and I intend to save them for my granddaughter.) I can still recite each one in order throughout the book, and I have a vivid memory of each illustration that accompanies it. I remember my mother reading to rne. LotsyWe had tons of books. I remember witnessing her reading, Sunday mornings, the newspape . I would curl up on the carpet in my pajamas and pretend to read the comics, making up stories to go with the pictures. We subscribed to what seems like a glut of magazines, and we always took them somewhere for someone else to read (we still do). We tern}ed it recycling, although it was long before there was recycling, as we know it today. My mother has always hated waste, and she valued books like they were her most precious gems, and still does! I learned to treat them with the utmost respect. I can remember getting a collection of the Peanuts comics bounded in book forrp and thinking they were coloring books, since they were all in black and white, like in the newspaper back then and during the week now. She was so angry with me. I can't remember if she spanked me or not, but I remember her not speaking, and that has always been much worse for me. From that day to this, I never dare write in a book, except for my name and phone number, unless it is a book to be marked in, like a textbook, and for several years in college, I only lightly marked in pencil so that I could erase. I explicitly reember "books are our friends, and we treat our friends wii, respect." The next period of literature I can remember is fairy tales. There are two books that stand out in my memory from preschool to about the time I actually sarted to read, which was about mid -year in first grade. I think. Grimm's Fairy Tales was my favorite. I loved the "Twelve Dancing Princesses ", "Sleeping Beauty ", and "The Golden Goose ". I can remember one night when my mother was on the third round of "Twelve Dancing Princesses" before I fell asleep; another in which we took the sheets off the bed use as veils and acted the story out. My mother sometimes got bored with the traditional 7'es and began to change the stories a bit. For example, Goldilocks became a selfish brat with no manners entering the three bear's house. They set about a plan to teach her a lesson. The stories were great, but I was a very serious child, and would often get angry about 3 her digressions. We laugh together now, as I do some of the same with Kourteney. Fortunately, Kourteney has a delightful, naughty sense of humor, and loves to alter and write her own stories. The second book I remember so distinctly was, storybook from Hans Christian Andersen. It's vivid to me because the stories scared me. I can remember my mother having to put me to bed with aspirin, for crying so hard, after hearing the "Little Match Girl" one Christmas (I also became emotional after "Bambi" and "Lassie "). "The Red Dancing Shoes" gave me a fear of ballet, and when "The Little Mermaid" movie came out a�few years ago, my first thought was "How could they ?" Needless to say, I don't read Anderson to Kourteney. I also loved a picture book called Hi All You Rabbits by Carl Memling and Uncle Wiggly by Howard R. Garis. / I don't remember exactly what method was used in teaching me to read. I asked my mother and she didn't know either. We guessed it must have been a combination of phonics and something else. I do remember getting my first library card the summer before first grade. I remember because the requirement was I had to be ableo sign it, and I was proud. I knew the library quite well by the time I could write. We went to storyhour on Saturdays and visited one other time during the week, 1 was very comfortable there. I reminisced of it last week,when Kourteney stopped to ask Mrs. Duncan, the juvenile librarian at the Bryan Public Library, whose been there since I first signed my library card in 1973, if the film projector was available for checkout. I remember First grade being a hard year. I was having some difficulty learning, I don't recall if it related to reading or not. Lots of testing was done, I was sent to a resource rooms and I got glasses that ear. I loved my teacher, but reading at school was not as fun. We used basal rea ers. I remember they had stripes and workbooks to match. I 4 - emember being put into reading groups. There were three in our class: Iow (dummies), middle, and high (smart ones). I was in the middle or high group, I don't remember, but I . ? ' ' .fy. t . f ' ....• . dc remember not being with my friends. Reading seemed ike such asocial activity. I remember not understanding why I couldn't do it with people I got along with. Reading at home was exciting. The basal readers were too easy, and it was no frn listening to someone read without inflection. I like to act the stories out and hear different voices, and make sounds. That need became very apparent to me, as I entered junior high and high school when my mother was still reading to me. She reads to me still. I recognize now that I am a very auditory learner. I enjoy books on tape, and have a huge collection of children's books on tape. I remember being the only child in First grade knowing what irrigation was and getting to explain it to everyone else. I felt special. I loved Mrs. Caruther's for developing that in me. She left school raid -year due to poor health. I missed her, I wish I could tell her how she touched my life. I think of her often as I am approaching my student teaching. I hope 1 will be able to make children feel as special as she did me. As time went on, I did not develop a love of reading, but merely tolerated it. I think if I had been given choices about what I could read in school, I would have read much more, inside and outside of school. As a junior in high school, [ enrolled in an honor English - History )/flour block class. There were about 50 kids in the class. It was much like a college class. We did lots of group work and projects. It was very self - paced. We got to choose what books we wanted to pead as long as they were approved. We could leave school to do research at A &M's an's Library. I loved it, and I began to read, as I never had before, mostly classics. y favorites were from the Romantic time 5 period: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Donne. I to eihetry. Aside from that, I have always placed a higher value on non-fiction. It seems like there is so much factual information to be learned; I can't bring myself to waste vatoable time on 'dy." I don't care for mysteries, and I hate romance novels. I thiti I +flight like historical fiction if I ever got started. Since I grew up without computers;‘ v ficnefit from the age of spellcheck. I won a school -wide spelling bee in junior high, and wona short story writing contest in high school. 1 spent many hours reading to my brother ten years my junior, and as an adult I work with Literacy Volunteers of America. r7thankful to have had such rich life experiences, especially a parent with a love and respect for Literacy. r^. ` ,mot �i f,'� �Jt f. / .. ,..' f � 'i� . 1:; f . ) * ,. ti p '.. tt :' .4:.) ' t ,/ c,-- J--- , 0. , ),..) " - \ } f l r �` A q ! ..., L 1 . Y. ? R ! fir - ` . A r )- . • MY . r ` lr r �f . 1111.