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nekokami · 06-19-2008, 10:21 AM

Were any of us not strange little kids? (Er... are any of us not now?)

I sort of vaguely remember getting worksheets (they were called mimeographs, Z-chan), from teacher friends my parents had, with early reading exercises. Apparently I was a late bloomer-- I didn't start reading until I was 4.

My mom didn't get a chance to read to me, though she read to my younger brother. By the time she had realized she might want to be reading to us, I was too impatient to wait for someone else to take the time to pronounce the words on the page. In first grade, they sent me to fourth grade for reading, second grade for math, and left me alone in the corner of the room the rest of the time. I remember the fourth-grade teacher had to take me aside and ask me not to correct the reading of the other students when we would read out loud in a circle, because that was her job, and because it made the other students feel bad. By third grade, my parents had had to write a note to ask the school to let me have access to the whole school library, not just the "age appropriate" books. But by then I was bringing in my own books (or town library books) more often than not. My mother remembers that kids would come to the door and ask if I could come out and play, and she'd go to my room and I'd say "I'm reading." She'd go back and tell the kids, "I'm sorry, she's reading." (She also says I complained later that I didn't have any friends. I don't think this was quite the case. I think I complained that the people who weren't my friends were pretty nasty to me, rather than leaving me alone to read.)

Now, at 42, I read pretty much every night, getting through three books a week, typically. Usually it's one new book, two re-reads per week, or something like that. The ratio varies a bit when I'm in graduate classes, or if another hobby has grabbed me. This spring I got interested in 3D computer modeling, so I was reading online and fiddling with software, so I may have dropped down to 1-1.5 books a week for a while.

And my first computer was also a C64-- unless you count the VT100 in the basement with the 300 baud modem line to a VAX.

06-19-2008, 10:21 AM	#30
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	Were any of us not strange little kids? (Er... are any of us not now?) I sort of vaguely remember getting worksheets (they were called mimeographs, Z-chan), from teacher friends my parents had, with early reading exercises. Apparently I was a late bloomer-- I didn't start reading until I was 4. My mom didn't get a chance to read to me, though she read to my younger brother. By the time she had realized she might want to be reading to us, I was too impatient to wait for someone else to take the time to pronounce the words on the page. In first grade, they sent me to fourth grade for reading, second grade for math, and left me alone in the corner of the room the rest of the time. I remember the fourth-grade teacher had to take me aside and ask me not to correct the reading of the other students when we would read out loud in a circle, because that was her job, and because it made the other students feel bad. By third grade, my parents had had to write a note to ask the school to let me have access to the whole school library, not just the "age appropriate" books. But by then I was bringing in my own books (or town library books) more often than not. My mother remembers that kids would come to the door and ask if I could come out and play, and she'd go to my room and I'd say "I'm reading." She'd go back and tell the kids, "I'm sorry, she's reading." (She also says I complained later that I didn't have any friends. I don't think this was quite the case. I think I complained that the people who weren't my friends were pretty nasty to me, rather than leaving me alone to read.) Now, at 42, I read pretty much every night, getting through three books a week, typically. Usually it's one new book, two re-reads per week, or something like that. The ratio varies a bit when I'm in graduate classes, or if another hobby has grabbed me. This spring I got interested in 3D computer modeling, so I was reading online and fiddling with software, so I may have dropped down to 1-1.5 books a week for a while. And my first computer was also a C64-- unless you count the VT100 in the basement with the 300 baud modem line to a VAX.