A Day in the Life: What, When, & How I Read Now

     Does reading BabyCenter.com on my iPhone while changing diapers count as reading? For me it does.  Life as a stay-at-home mother of two boys still in diapers, while going to graduate school full-time doesn’t leave much room for romance novels.  The majority of my reading is educational in one sense or another.  Some days I feel I should have a PhD in medicine for all of the reading I’ve done on strange rashes, viruses, and fevers.  At home, I have to make every minute count in order to be able to manage all of my responsibilities and feel as if I am doing my job half-way decent.  Luckily, my children are early risers, so we start our day with the sun.  The majority of my daytime reading comes in heavy duty cardboard books with bright pictures and happy endings.  My children still take naps, so on a good day I can squeeze in an hour’s worth of school readings in between cleaning up spilled milk and prepping dinner.  By seven pm, they are tucked into bed which gives me the time I need for my school work.   
     I can’t deny it, I do read intermittently from my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds.  I justify this guilty pleasure as my way of remaining current so that I can relate to the world of my students.  Working in the teaching profession and being a parent have allowed me the opportunity to focus on teachable moments, with an attempt to understand a variety of motivational methods.  I view my children as my full-time students and am constantly taking advantage of every opportunity to teach them something new.  A small part of me longs for the day when I can sit on the couch and read leisurely, but I know I will miss the hustle and bustle of being a full-time Reading Mama! 

Brothers? Really? Reading Time with My Boys

It’s amazing how two brothers from the same mother and father could be so different.  From a very young age my first born son could sit in my lap and listen to an endless pile of children’s books.  My second son, now almost two years old, has yet to sit through a fully read story.  I have come to realize from my own two children and those that I have had the pleasure of teaching, that we all need information presented in a variety of ways in order to gain something from it.  I spend time every night reading at least three short books to my oldest son before bed, yet I sing to my youngest while swaying with him in my arms.  During the day I pick up picture books and point out the images with my little one, while I cuddle up on the sofa to enjoy a longer story with my oldest.  Interestingly, my oldest very seldom will sit and look through a book independently, while my youngest is entertained for stretches at a time with a pile of books all to himself.  Whatever I do, I always make sure I read to both of my children every day at least once, in a way that is favorable to their unique personalities.   

A Family Tree: The Education, Reading and Writing Abilities of my Grandparents, Parents, and Sister

     I started my day today with a call to my grandpa.  I wanted to find out the details of his and my dear grandma’s reading and writing abilities.  Sadly, my grandmother is no longer living.  He explained that because she was home taking care of her younger siblings, she spent two years in sixth grade and another two years in seventh.  She never made it past the ninth grade.  Still, she could read and write fairly well given her circumstances.  Two months before her seventeenth birthday she and my grandfather were married.   He had graduated from high school and would complete some college at the University of Maryland and in the U.S. Air Force.  They traveled all over the world and became fluent in Spanish while living in Spain four years.  At that time, my mother was a toddler learning to speak so her first learned languages were English and Spanish, which she spoke with a live-in nanny.  My mother earned her bachelor’s degree from a writing intensive college and has always considered herself a writer.  She has written several short stories as well as poems.   

     Growing up, my sister and I were always exposed to writing in our natural day-to-day lives.  During the summers in between school, we were latch-key kids like so many others back then.  To keep us busy, my mom would create worksheets for us to complete, along with summary assignments of our favorite TV shows.  We loved writing.  As we got older, if we would fight with each other, my mother would have us write essays about the value of sisterhood.  Mom still has those essays hanging on a wall in her office today.  My sister and I both graduated with our bachelor’s degrees, she obtained a second associates degree and I am now in graduate school.  I give credit once again to my mother for taking advantage of everyday teachable moments and role-modeling a love of learning.   I plan to follow in her footsteps with my own children and future students!

Four Generations

My Wonder Years: Attitudes toward Reading and Writing through the Years

     From a very young age I was taught to read and write.  When I was eight months old my parents bought my first set of New Standard Encyclopedias, Legendary Classics, The Complete Works of Programmed Classics, and a set of children’s books by Child Horizons.  Every book that I was given as a child I have to this day.  In first grade I was placed in an advanced reading level.   By the time I started third grade I had published three short books through the Third Grade Publishing Company in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  I loved reading and writing and was proud to say it!  In fourth grade I wrote my first book of poems titled, Poems Poems Poems!  My favorite writer at that time was Shel Silverstein.  I had several journals and diaries kept under lock and key until sometime in middle school.  Once adolescence hit, my passion for reading and writing vanished.  I quit all of it unless it was required of me.  My attitude toward reading and writing was not necessarily negative, it simply was non-existent. 

     While in college I read and wrote enough to get by with average grades.  I am convinced my interests in a social life took precedence above and beyond anything else.  It was not until I graduated from college and took a job as a flight attendant that I started reading again.  For one year I traveled the world and read in my off time.  My next job would place me in a residential therapeutic wilderness camp in Florida working with “at-risk” teens.  I started journaling at night to express my feelings of frustration, sadness, and finally love! I met my husband who was also a camp-counselor.  For two years we communicated by letters written daily to one another.  I now have every letter written between us bound in a book.  Now, as a graduate student, my attitude of reading and writing is one of intrinsic motivation.  I am more driven by the learning process of reading and writing than ever before.  While I would never replace my experiences in between my love of reading and writing, I will give way to the old cliché, If I only knew then what I know now.  Now I have a matured love of reading and writing, and view it as a way of life. 

My first set of books. 

My Reading Mama

It seems fitting to write my first post about the wonderful woman who influenced my reading and writing abilities more than anyone else, my mother.  Before I started Kindergarten she taught me how to count, read, and write.  She recalled the moment I could read a letter from her and write back as the most exciting memory she has of my early development. She kept all of my childhood books, which I now enjoy reading to my own children. My favorites as a youngster were Ramona Forever by Beverly Cleary, anything by Judy Blume, and a series of Golden Book stories called Wacky Families by Allan Ahlberg.  My mom also bought my first set of encyclopedias before the age of one.  After I had my first child, I made a vow to do my best to foster a love of reading in him.  Furthermore, I have devoted my professional career towards education through librarianship.  I intend to instill a love of learning in my students by engaging them in topics they can relate to and are interested in.  Today, I have books in every room in the house and both of my boys love to be read to. With the highest gratitude, I hope to be for my boys what my mother was for me, a Reading Mama!