Three Literacy Narratives

This post is an example of Topic 2 for 1/28.

Jeff and Charissa, both teachers and avowed smarty-pants(es?) and Kara, a computer scientist, turned stay-at-home mom answer the question "What are your earliest memories of reading?"

Jeff:
I don't remember much about learning to read. I can remember having children's books around with gold spines and adolescent books handed down from my aunt. But I don't remember phonics drills, or sounding words out or any of the things commonly associated with kindergarten education. My memories of anything come surprisingly late, and children in my family learned to read early. I do though remember when I decided to love reading.

On my birthday one year, I was given a book about astronauts and cosmonauts and a paperback dictionary by my Opa (Opa is German for "grandfather;" he is from Maine, but he married a German woman. She took his last name, but he took her language. Thus, they were Oma and Opa [German] Munsey [Irish].) Though I had been raised around the thin gold spined books, these were the first that were actually mine and mine alone. This gift, then, represented ownership and this a kind of adulthood.

Also wrapped up in this was the fact that, technically, my Opa was my step-Opa. He is the father of my mother's second husband. And though as an adult I have always considered my step-family my real family (I don't even remember my mother marrying my step-father), I imagine that at that young age I may have still had a childish understanding that this was a new, not-quite-real family. The books then were also a sign of acceptance from a man I really admired, but with whom my relationship must have felt tenuous.

Charissa:
My earliest memories of reading involve my father reading to my brothers and me every night before bed. My favorite book was "Could be Worse." The only thing I remember about the book is that it mentioned orange marmalade. I thought "marmalade" was such a pretty word, and yet sounded so disgusting. I insisted we read the book every night, and before long I had the story memorized and would "read" the book to my baby brother.

Kara:
I was 4 years old in my first memory of reading Dr. Suess' "The Cat in the Hat". I was sitting next to my mother on the couch in the living room of our small house in Dallas, Texas. I knew how to read all the "at" words, but had to sound ou...t others. There were other little books I read in my pre-K school. The one I remember was titled "Matt the Rat". I only remember it because my older brother Matt hated that I kept saying the name of that book over and over again. These memories make me smile, and make me anxious for the days when I can share these moments with my own children.


Reading is a Family Thing:
All three of our narratives mention family members. In both Charissa and Kara's stories, their parents read to them in the home. In mine, I was given books to read by my Opa. Stories like these dominate literacy narratives. Family sponsorship (to borrow the term from Deborah Brandt) is the common theme in literacy narratives. It is also the most noticeably absent among folks who are illiterate. This suggests that literacy may be more closely tied to the home than it is to general intelligence, school teaching practices, or anything else. Thus, a person's literate potential may be closely tied to their home lives, and in fighting illiteracy, the battle is one fought on home soil.