Read to Your Baby: Aimee's Story

As a little girl, I was lucky enough to have a mother that knew the importance of reading to her children.  We took weekly trips to the library in the summers, bringing home huge piles of books.  We were members of book clubs and received book in our mailbox every month, many of which I still have.  We collected golden books by the dozen.  But my favorite book was "Fairy Tales and Fables" by Gyo Fujikawa.  It wasn't for the stories as much as the illustrations.  I remember first getting lost in the images that she created and later found myself getting lost in the text of other books and my mind found it so easy to create its own images to go with books I was discovering.  

Recently one of my elementary school teachers said to me, "Do you remember how I'd explain an assignment you were to do in class and instead of doing it, you'd slip your hand in your desk and pull out a book and read it instead?"  I laughed and said, "No. I don't remember that but it doesn't surprise me because I love them so much."  My only regret is that I didn't read more.  

My first chapter book was "The Box Car Children" by Gertrude Chandler Warner.  Oh did I love this book!  But I could relate to it in a way.  When I was growing up we had miles and miles of forest behind our home and my brother and I would build clubs and pretend they were our homes and we would pretend and play and get lost in our imaginations.  So, when I first read this book, I imagined I had found a boxcar in the woods and made it my home.  I loved that they had everything they needed by foraging for it.  They even had a cold stream of water to keep their milk and butte cold.  Well, now I want to go find that book and read it again.  Yesterday, me and the kids made a rock lined trail in the little patch of woods behind our house to a "club house" area in the woods.  The smell of the rotting leaves and the order created in the wilderness made for a productive, hardworking me.

In middle school my Aunt Janis and Uncle Gary gave me a set a books by Janette Oak.  It was the Love Comes Softly Series.  One week during the summer after they were given to me, I picked up the first one and couldn't put it down.  I read it and the others in the series, all 8 in one week.  I was in love.  Once again, the book took me to a place that I could imagine living in.  I could see myself being with the characters and sharing their lives.  I loved reading but didn't do enough of it in my opinion.  I think just like anything, too much is bad but it's beautiful in moderation.   

When I started college I knew I wanted to be a teacher.  I'd known it since I was a little girl when I would pretend to be a teacher and write pretend names in my "textbooks" and teach my little brother or baby dolls.  It wasn't that the idea of teaching was glamorous, it was that it seemed simple and fulfilling.  When I started the education program at Berry College I realized I no longer had the collection of children's books that I used to have.  Where had they gone?  I still don't know but I set out to make my own, a new one, with old books. College students can not afford to buy new books, so I started with used book stores.  I amassed a fairly large collection while in college.  My children's literature collection also has collections within it.  While at Berry I found the "Fairy Tales and Fables" book in a classroom.  I took one look at it and new it was the one book I'd been missing.  I jotted down the author and illustrated and set out on a search.  Now, if I find her books, I buy them right away and put them in a collection.  Something about having her collection grounds my love for books and reading.  Each one is a sweet reminder.

I grew up, started teaching, got married, and found out I was having my first baby.  While I was pregnant I decided we needed a book to read to the baby before it was born.  I say "it" because we didn't find out what "it" was, "it" was our baby and that was all that matter.  My husband and I went to a large bookstore and I found "Time for Bed" by Mem Fox.  I LOVE Mem Fox!  Every night, for months, we read this book to the baby.  Baby came a little too early and if you can imagine my heart break when he had to stay in the NICU.  My husband went home and brought back this book, that we had been reading for months.  He sat beside our sons bed and began reading.  I am 100% sure that our baby boy enjoyed hearing this familiar story from a familiar voice.  As he was laying in his little bed, on a tilt, with IV's, a CPAP, a bili-light and protective goggles, he listened to his Daddy read.  We will never know what goes through a babies head when he is read to but we do know that tremendous growth takes place in their brains.  

I have collected more books, taken my children to the library on a regular basis, read to them at night or anytime they want me too, let them shop for their own books and I have children that will sit and listen to a story and take it all in and a child that loves chapter books early in his education.  I could only hope that all of my efforts would prove to give my children the very best foundation for reading that I could possibly give.  In our area, there is no excuse for a parent of young children to not expose them to literature, there are even free book programs which are a blessing to many children.  Even parents that can't read can expose children to books by "telling" the stories in pictures books.  I do encourage parents to enroll in a literacy program in their area if possible.  

When I decided to enroll in college again to start my masters degree, I immediately knew I wanted a degree in Reading and be a specialist in the field.  Don't ask me what kind of job I want because that should be obvious, I just hope there's a job out there for me.  My life goal as an educator is to let no child that I can impact pass 3rd grade without being on grade level.  That's my goal!  Ambitious I know, but why wouldn't we all want children to read on grade level by the age of 9.  My second goal, which is just as important as the first, is to help children find their inner passion for reading.

Now, go get a book and read to your baby!

That's where I'm going.

Aimee