The Back Story Sad, But True- Part One

Welcome to my new book blog.  I started it because it is my passion to connect children with books they will love in hopes of creating lifelong readers.  I plan to use this blog to review and recommend books for children and discuss successful literacy activities from my fourth grade classroom.

But let's start with how I came up with the blog name.

I was indeed a late reading "bloomer".  I did not start reading for enjoyment until I was in my mid twenties.

As a child I remember feeling smart, but I had a difficult time learning how to read.  I was the kind of kid who would read a page and have no idea what happened.  In third grade, my teachers tried to help me by placing me in the lowest level reading group to read our basal readers.  I remember the day that I was demoted from the middle reading group to the lowest group.  That was the day I learned that I was not smart and I was not expected to succeed (at least that is how my third grade self felt).

So I accepted my fate and continued through elementary school on my path of mediocrity.  I have brief glimmers of enjoyable reading experiences during this time.  I loved when our teacher or librarian read to us.  Our school librarian read Ticki Ticki Tembo by Arlene Mosel to us and I loved it so much that now it is one of my favorite picture books to read to my students.

In school I read because I HAD to.  I do not remember any teacher showing me that reading could be enjoyable or suggesting any great books for me.  

To make a long story short, I finished school and barely squeaked into college.  All the while I still never read for any reason other than to do my assignments and I was training to become a TEACHER!  How would I ever be able to inspire my students to read?

Read part two.