Learning to Read

This summer I am taking classes in the reading specialist program.  One day it hit me, I will be teaching children how to read.  I realized how much power comes with reading.  What an amazing career to be able to give the power of literacy to people.  William Armstrong's Sounder is a the story of a young boys quest to learn to read. 

The boy in this story understood exactly what it meant to be able to read.  Look at how he describes it, "One day I will learn to read' he said to himself.  He would have a book with some stories in it, then he wouldn't be lonesome even if his mother didn't sing." If you can read you will never be lonely.  When I first moved to Penn State I only knew one person and we had radically different schedules.  I was lonely.  Then I discovered the children's literature section of our library.  I poured myself into stories and I when I was reading I wasn't lonely anymore.  I had stories. 

"He was sure he could learn to read if he had a book."  Sometimes I forget how lucky I am.  The aforementioned library has the second largest collection of childrens literature in the state of Pennsylvania, and I have access to every single one of those books.  And th at is only a small portion of the hundreds of thousands of books available to me. This boy just wanted one. And here is my shameless plug.  With budgets the way that they are give any of your extra books to schools.  Give kids new books to read in a variety of genres.  Books are so important, don't let any kid wish for just one.

Learning to read...that's kids stuff.