I remember before when I first started reading that I only knew a few things about reading. I knew there was text on a page. I know that what I was doing in my classes was reading. I didn't know how much impact that text on a page could have on you. Before I read the book 1984, I had no idea, that books could influence you in a very powerful way. I didn't know that reading would ever be like that. I used to think that before that reading was for nerds. I used to buy into this idea that somehow reading is nerdy and shouldn't be done. Now for me it's quite the opposite. Now I like reading and now I think people who don't read are missing out on a lot. So, I ask you is reading everything you thought it would be?
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
May I ask how old you are and how old you were when you started to read? I learned to read before I was 5 years old, over 4 decades ago. Before I learned to read, my mother read to me. As best I can recall, I have been immersed in the written word since birth. Asking me what I thought reading would be like, is like asking me what I thought breathing or eating would be like.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Dude, Graff, is this the only thing you talk about?
Posted by Colonel Graff (Member # 11872) on :
I learned to read when I was like around 11 years old. I never was really much of a reader when I was young. There weren't any books that interested me. I liked to play video games all the time. I started to read when I was 11 years old. I got interested in reading when I read the Harry Potter books. Then I started to read these other fantasy books. I stopped reading until I was 17 years old and then I started reading again... and now I like it a lot more since I read 1984 and I read other books that made me appreciate reading more.
Posted by Colonel Graff (Member # 11872) on :
TomDavidson, to answer your question, no. I made this thread because I remember having a perception which was created by pop culture that made it seem like people who read books were nerds. I am asking if anyone else had a similar view of reading before they started reading.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Before I learned to read, the "pop culture" I was exposed to were Superfriends and PBS children's programming, which all made reading seem swell.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:I learned to read when I was like around 11 years old.
This explains a lot. It is very rare for people who start reading that late to become avid readers so you are quite unusual. You will find that most people who enjoy reading started reading at a very young age before they had clearly formed preconceptions. You will have a hard time finding any avid readers who will be able to answer your question.
quote:I made this thread because I remember having a perception which was created by pop culture that made it seem like people who read books were nerds.
I think you must come from a different sub-culture than I do. I am unaware of a pop culture stigma against reading in general. There are some stereotypes about science fiction fans but I'm simply not familiar with a general negative stereotype about people who read.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
My sister learned to read at a similar age. No one caught on until difficulties in the 4th grade cuz she was so intelligent that she memorized enough of what teachers were saying and what others were reading out loud, and recognized just enough written words to guess the meaning of test questions sufficiently well to get passing grades. After getting Ds then learning to read, she became an outstanding student.....and an avid reader.
[ January 07, 2009, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote: I am unaware of a pop culture stigma against reading in general. There are some stereotypes about science fiction fans but I'm simply not familiar with a general negative stereotype about people who read.
I sure am. Heck, the word "bookish" is almost synonymous with "nerdy".
Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :
quote:Was reading everything you thought it would be like?
I thought it would allow me to know what the little black marks meant. And it did!
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote: I am unaware of a pop culture stigma against reading in general. There are some stereotypes about science fiction fans but I'm simply not familiar with a general negative stereotype about people who read.
I sure am. Heck, the word "bookish" is almost synonymous with "nerdy".
Yes, but bookish generally implies much more than just literate. I am unfamiliar with a pop-culture that would label all people who read "bookish" or "nerdy".
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
People at work -constantly- remark on the fact that I read. Not just magazines or the newspaper, but big thick novels. Those who don't also read a lot remark often on how unusual and odd they find it.
I'm very familiar with such a pop culture, Rabbit.
Posted by Jeorge (Member # 11524) on :
Yesterday in class I told my students that I was reading "Walking the Gobi," which I received as a Christmas present from my brother.
The response was immediate: "You got a book for Christmas?" with the same amount of disdain that someone might say, "You got coal for Christmas?"
That told me a lot about what that particular student thinks of reading.
I don't think there's any sort of stigma attached to literacy, but those who love reading with the same sort of passion that some people love sports, music or movies are often branded as nerdy.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I think by "reading" Colonel Graff means "reading for pleasure", not just being able to translate marks on a page into words.
Of course, I also thought he was about 10 or 11, so I could be wrong about this too.
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: May I ask how old you are and how old you were when you started to read? I learned to read before I was 5 years old, over 4 decades ago. Before I learned to read, my mother read to me. As best I can recall, I have been immersed in the written word since birth. Asking me what I thought reading would be like, is like asking me what I thought breathing or eating would be like.
This is the same for me. Where I grew up, students were taught to read in first grade. But my mom was a reading teacher, so I was able to read by the time I was in pre-school. I have no memory of a time when I couldn't read.
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeorge: The response was immediate: "You got a book for Christmas?" with the same amount of disdain that someone might say, "You got coal for Christmas?"
I asked for almost nothing but books this year. My favorite gift this year was the boxed set of The Feynman Lectures on Physics, the Definitive Edition.
Posted by Fyfe (Member # 937) on :
My family are all avid readers, and I'm the only one who doesn't remember a time before reading. My mother and sisters all vividly remember wanting to learn to read before they actually did learn. So I don't know that lacking memory of that necessarily correlates with love of reading.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
We have to remember that Hatrack is not an accurate representation of the general population. This is the forum of an author, and most of the people that come here love reading.
Many people, especially younger people, not only have an active dislike for reading themselves, but also think that anyone who does it is a nerd...and you don't want to be a nerd do you?
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
Honestly, I don't remember not reading.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I was telling someone that I was working on a novel, but having a hard time of it.
He asked me, "Have you ever tried one of your kids' books for starters? Maybe move up from there?"
It took me a few seconds to realize he thought I meant reading a novel. I laughed and promptly assured him that I'm usually reading 2 or 3 novels at a time. Reading has never been a problem. Writing one is still eluding me.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I can remember, when I was learning the alphabet (so...what, probably one, one and a half? Somewhere in there), looking at printed text and trying to figure out what it was for. I knew that my parents spent a lot of time looking at the pages that were covered with letters, but I wasn't sure why, since it wasn't even like they were in order or anything. I also knew that books contained stories somehow, since my parents read to me, but I wasn't sure what the mechanism was. I don't remember when the lightbulb lit up, though, and I figured out what was going on.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I remember my mom making a scrapbook for me with letters and pictures of things that started with those letters. And there was a phonics oriented comic strip. I don't remember when that became reading though. Long before kindergarten, though.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:It took me a few seconds to realize he thought I meant reading a novel. I laughed and promptly assured him that I'm usually reading 2 or 3 novels at a time. Reading has never been a problem. Writing one is still eluding me.
Same here. I'm struggling through what I hope will be my first finished novel. It will be about my 20th novel that I have begun,but my problem has always been finishing it.
One of these days.....
Of course, I never though I'd go back to college and get a degree at my age, but I graduate in May. so anything is possible...I just have to make the time to sit down and finish the darn thing.
As for the topic, like many here, I don't remember NOT reading. My mom said I taught myself, because I had an older brother who was learning to read and I lay in the floor on the opposite side of him and followed the words as he read them. I actually got my first exposure to the written word upside down. Some of it must have stuck, because I can read fluently with the book turned upside down, even today.
My mom said in kindergarten the teacher was frustrated because it's normal for kids to write letters backward...but I was the first one she met that tended to write them upside down. Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I didn't make my letters backwards, but I did write right to left when I first started.
Well, now I'm second guessing myself. I don't recall writing letters backward, but I'll check with my parents and see.
[ January 07, 2009, 03:31 PM: Message edited by: Noemon ]
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
Wow, Noemon! If you can really remember back to age 1.5, that's impressive. My earliest memory is at age three, and it's only a memory of a few seconds.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I have some memories of age 3-4 but I think they are false memories constructed of stories my parents told me.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Belle, you write some darn good bodice-ripper romance. Ever thought of going that direction? You might be able to finish a novel! Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I don't remember learning to read, only learning to write. My first written word was 'pop' and I wrote it all over the page. I haven't stopped since.
As for perceptions of readers, I guess I am aware of the stereotypes, but I have never had a problem with them. I've always occupied the geeky end of the spectrum, so reading has just fit naturally into that. Most of my friends liked or tolerated people who had their noses stuck in a book. People who didn't I only assumed were missing out.
As an adult I've never really encountered anyone who has commented on reading, probably because I also do things like watch TV. It is more of what I read that has caused any gaps between me and others.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sean Monahan: Wow, Noemon! If you can really remember back to age 1.5, that's impressive. My earliest memory is at age three, and it's only a memory of a few seconds.
My early memories are really spotty, but I can remember bits and pieces from back then. My earliest memory is of being in my crib, watching my brother and my mom put up loony tune posterboard cutouts up on the walls. My mother told my brother not to put a Yosimite Sam to close to the crib, as I'd tear it. I tried to say that I wouldn't do that, but I couldn't speak yet, and it just came as as a babble. I was so frustrated and angry at not being able to talk that I started crying. My mom thinks that I was probably about 9 months old when she got those cutouts. I'm aware that it isn't considered possible for kids that age to form memories, but unless that and all of my other really early memories (being scared of the way my cradle rocked, being fascinated by the eyehook that I could see but couldn't reach on the cradle, being lonely when put down for a nap in my crib, trying to decide whether it was better to scoot or crawl, that sort of thing) are false, the people who believe that are wrong. Or I'm some kind of mutant. But I figure they're probably just wrong.
Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :
quote:Or I'm some kind of mutant
Bean?
Posted by Speed (Member # 5162) on :
quote:Originally posted by Colonel Graff: Was reading everything you thought it would be like?
Well, reading this thread was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be like.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Hmm. Memories. I have some from when I was two. For example, I remember being given a particular action figure. I remember playing with my grandpa's cane. But I don't remember my grandfather... he was there, but he isn't in my memory at all. I remember getting into a car accident. I remember being in a car, and going over a bridge one time, at night. I remember a few other things, I think. But my memories only really start to come back when I was 3 or so, maybe 4 before they became significant. I remember a LOT from back then, however.
Now, the thing is, when it comes to books, my mother always read to me. From comic books, in fact. I remember her doing so from the time I was very little. I always had a book with me. I always kept one by me, and I always enjoyed them. I suppose the same is true today, considering I always have one or more books on my person at all times when I go out. When I forget to bring at least one, I almost feel naked.
I don't really remember learning to read. I read from when I was little. I think, though... oh! I remember something from before I could read well now. A particular store had a name, and I couldn't make out what it said. It was as meaningless, say, as Korean is to me now. I don't remember quite how young I was then. But I know I learned to read fairly early, and I appreciated books even before I could read them.
Posted by Elmer's Glue (Member # 9313) on :
quote:Originally posted by Speed:
quote:Originally posted by Colonel Graff: Was reading everything you thought it would be like?
Well, reading this thread was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be like.
Because you already made a thread exactly like this.
Posted by Speed (Member # 5162) on :
I don't recall making a thread exactly like this. Posted by Elmer's Glue (Member # 9313) on :
Well don't I feel silly...
Posted by dean (Member # 167) on :
I don't remember learning to read. I had two much-older siblings (ten and seven years older), and they both loved to read. I don't remember being read to much, except a little bit from Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and Sense and Sensibility (which I thought was awful and ridiculous when I was five, but which I like quite well now).
I remember that when I went to school, they put us in various levels of reading groups, and they said that I already knew how to read (which I remember surprised me), so they put me in the highest level, which was mostly about learning new words. My best friend explained to me how to move up a level. (You read the whole book, and then tell them that you did so, so they'll move you up.) She and I kept leveling up in this fashion until we got to non-stupid books. I remember seeing the word "magic" in one of the early books, and asking my mother what that word was.
I remember that my mother used to bring home boxes from her job, and the boxes were labeled "computer" since they originally held paper for dot-matrix printers (you remember the kind-- with the extra strips on the side to guide the paper through the printer), and I couldn't figure out what that word was on the side of the box. I could say it, but I had no idea what it meant.
I remember that I made a lot of mistakes reading. I once asked my mother what deh-ter-myn-ded people were. My older brother (who enjoyed teasing and pranks) told me that it meant someone who jumped off the bridge because everyone else did.
I remember being bored with the picture books. My Mom would let me check out only four books at a time, and I would check them out, take them home, and read them in under thirty minutes, and then have nothing to read. My Mom tried to drag me into the section with chapter books, but I was afraid that someone would come tell me I didn't belong there. I remember, though, one of the first of those books that I read. It was called Benvenuto and was about a kid who found an egg and managed to get it to hatch and it was a dinosaur.
I remember when I was very small, I told someone that I'd just written my first letter. The person asked me which letter it was, and I gave them a puzzled look and told them that it was to my grandparents.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: People at work -constantly- remark on the fact that I read. Not just magazines or the newspaper, but big thick novels. Those who don't also read a lot remark often on how unusual and odd they find it.
That's probably because you read while you should be working... :ducks:
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
"As best I can recall, I have been immersed in the written word since birth. Asking me what I thought reading would be like, is like asking me what I thought breathing or eating would be like."
Absolutely this is how I feel. Unlike many here I am a slow reader taking one book at a time, but I read a lot for what I can because I love the written word.
My most vivid first memory of reading was "Dick and Jane" in Kindergarten. Students sat around a desk and read a sentence or two. When it came to me I read what was assigned, but I wanted to keep reading and out loud. However, I did mildly wonder why we were reading such a meaningless book. For as long as I can remember my favorite place to go was the library.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: That's probably because you read while you should be working... :ducks:
I can't read while I'm working. I'm a Material Handler. Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
And yet you can't seem to handle my material... Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
Oh, that was another sweet yams joke? Posted by Shmuel (Member # 7586) on :
quote:Originally posted by dean: I remember, though, one of the first of those books that I read. It was called Benvenuto and was about a kid who found an egg and managed to get it to hatch and it was a dinosaur.
This is entirely irrelevant to your point, but I can't help myself: Benvenuto was actually a dragon.
Otherwise, I'd have to add my voice to the "I can't remember ever not reading" chorus. I grew up surrounded by books.
Posted by Cashew (Member # 6023) on :
Anyone wish they read faster than they do? My mother was one of those people who could read a book in a day or two, she could start a book on the bus on the way to work and finish it on the way home that night; even in her 80s she could read a book faster than I can.
I love to read, have read ever since I could remember, and feel empty without a book of some sort going, but a fast read for me is 4 or 5 days (depending on the size of the book of course), more usually being at least acouple of weeks.
Ususally I'm happy with my reading rate: I like to savour the language, even rereading passages more than once to enjoy the language, and love inhabiting the worlds authors create for extended periods, rather than whipping through town full speed, so to speak.
But yesterday, after spending my Christmas dollars at Borders and wishing I had more money to spend, I started wishing, at least a little bit, I could read as fast as my mother did. I've got a stack of about 20 books by my bed waiting to be read and a bunch more I want to buy so I can enjoy them too. I'm 56 in a month and so have got to the point where I have gained an awareness that the time will come eventually when some of those books I keep adding to my bedside stack won't actually get read, and that bothers me. I love books and can't think of anything I would rather do than read. The end of that is not a nice thought.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Same here Cashew. My mom reads novels at a clip I can't begin to match. I can force myself to read faster but it's at the price of enjoyment and comprehension. I haven't figured out whether my mom is making that tradeoff or her brain is just faster than mine.
Posted by Cashew (Member # 6023) on :
Yeah, that's what I wonder too, but I think my mother's brain (at least) was faster than mine. She had a photographic memory for much of her life. I remember loaning her Last of the Amazons by Steven Pressfield when she was 85, and watched her read the last 300-odd pages in a little over two hours while she was at my house. I was flabbergasted.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: Oh, that was another sweet yams joke?
You know my sweet yams bring all the boys to the yard...
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: Same here Cashew. My mom reads novels at a clip I can't begin to match. I can force myself to read faster but it's at the price of enjoyment and comprehension. I haven't figured out whether my mom is making that tradeoff or her brain is just faster than mine.
My mother reads at an incredible rate as well, but ask her to discuss *anything* she has read, and she really can't. Her recall of detail is very low. So she can read 5 books in a weekend on vacation, and not remember having read them the next year.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by Cashew: I love books and can't think of anything I would rather do than read. The end of that is not a nice thought.
A week or two ago my girlfriend and I were talking about what we'd do if we had to choose between eating nutritious but flavorless gruel for the rest of our lives, but being supplied with all of the books we wanted, and only reading dry textbooks on subjects we weren't particularly interested in, magazines (not counting ficiton magazines), and newspapers for the rest of our lives, but being supplied with as varied and delicious a diet as we could imagine. We both went with the books. I'd regret either decision, I'm sure, but I'd regret going without the books more than I would going without the tasty food.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I'll take the food.
I can write. I can't cook.
Posted by Cashew (Member # 6023) on :
You've nailed it Noemon!
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
I'd take the books. I can't cook either, so what I eat now is basically nutrition deficient gruel. Nutritious gruel would be a step up.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:Originally posted by Noemon:
quote:Originally posted by Sean Monahan: Wow, Noemon! If you can really remember back to age 1.5, that's impressive. My earliest memory is at age three, and it's only a memory of a few seconds.
My early memories are really spotty, but I can remember bits and pieces from back then. My earliest memory is of being in my crib, watching my brother and my mom put up loony tune posterboard cutouts up on the walls. My mother told my brother not to put a Yosimite Sam to close to the crib, as I'd tear it. I tried to say that I wouldn't do that, but I couldn't speak yet, and it just came as as a babble. I was so frustrated and angry at not being able to talk that I started crying. My mom thinks that I was probably about 9 months old when she got those cutouts. I'm aware that it isn't considered possible for kids that age to form memories, but unless that and all of my other really early memories (being scared of the way my cradle rocked, being fascinated by the eyehook that I could see but couldn't reach on the cradle, being lonely when put down for a nap in my crib, trying to decide whether it was better to scoot or crawl, that sort of thing) are false, the people who believe that are wrong. Or I'm some kind of mutant. But I figure they're probably just wrong.
I think you are highly unusual in this regard. Most people have few if any memories of a time before they learned to speak which isn't to say that you don't have this memories.
I have some clear memories from when I was about 1 1/2. I remember very distinctly the first Sunday school class I attended and that I wasn't allowed to go until I was 18 months old. I also remember numerous things about the apartment where we lived, climbing into my crib to take naps, things my mother told me. I remember going to my great grandmothers funeral which was prior to my second birth day and my father lifting me up to see into her coffin and my asking him why she didn't open her eyes. But I was speaking in complete sentences by the time I was 1 1/2 and I don't have any clear memories of a time before I could talk.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Oh, I suppose I should add that I do remember learning how to read but the only preconception I remember having about it was that if I learned to read, I wouldn't have to rely on my mother or father to read to me. I can't remember I time when I wasn't read to.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I was always read-to as well. My mother said it was the one time we would all 4 sit still, when she was reading to us. I remember my little brother learning to read. He would look at magazines and just NEED to know what the captions said about the pictures he was seeing. I remember him asking mom to read things to him, and calling out "what does B-E-L-O-N-G spell" etc. He was highly motivated to read, cause it drove him nuts to be the only person in our family who couldn't read.
I don't remember having that process myself. I think I learned to read much younger than he did. I just absorbed it from my older siblings, reading their hand-me-down books, I think. I was probably around 4.
I do remember soon after I could read, thinking it was so much fun that I read every road sign and business sign out loud in the car whenever we went out. I remember my mom asking me to please stop. Apparently that got annoying after a bit.
I come from a family of readaholics, and I always loved reading from the very first. My family went to the big library downtown every Sunday, then stopped on the way back and got ice cream cones. It was a family ritual, and we could check out as many books as we liked. Also, mom let us buy as many of those Arrow books, the paperbacks they sold to kids through a catalog passed around in school, as we wanted. That was fun.
Reading for us was always a fun thing, never something we were supposed to do. It was a great delight, like candy or ice cream, and not like spinach. I think that's part of the attraction for us. It was always "put down that book and do your chores" or "put the book away and turn out the light, it's bedtime now." Never "read this cause it's good for you to read." I think teachers can kill anything by making it something you have to do instead of something you want to do. Don't you?
Posted by dean (Member # 167) on :
Thanks, Shmuel. I couldn't remember whether it was dragon or dinosaur, and figured I'd go with it. =D
I can read pretty fast. I read a 400 page book cover to cover today. In a year, I could still probably tell you most of its plot, but the details all fall out of my brain for the most part. That's part of why I own so many books. I forget enough that they're fun to reread. Sometimes, if I really like a book, I will read it twice in a row. I like sharing books with people because their reading the book will usually make me want to reread it myself or remind me of some of the things I'd forgotten.
I think it's funny that a lot of the time when my boyfriend and I go out to eat, we will each take a book and read. Sometimes I catch people looking at us with strange expressions, something like pity as though we were announcing in public that we can't stand each other. Only one person who ever waited on us commented on it positively. He said something like, "I can see this is the table of avid readers!"
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