Tag Archives: reading

My Reader Autobiography

Posted on by

Salutations!

My professor for CLS 534 Adult Programming for Public Libraries in Summer 2022 wanted to get to know us individually as readers and tasked us with writing our autobiographies in this specific context. The entirety of my essay is in the Google Drive folder “Documents/Presentations (MSLS & Beyond);” below are the TL;DR highlights (in my humble opinion):

  • My journey of actually learning to read was difficult and tearful; my mom remembers me sitting in her lap crying over “Hooked on Phonics” almost daily, since we began homeschooling when I was around “kindergarten” age. Somehow one day, the words on the page, what they meant, and how they connected to oral language, must have all clicked in my brain because I have been an avid reader for as long as I can remember.
  • Since I loved the book Stuart Little by E. B. White so much after meeting the Littles when I was eight or nine, my parents and I actually made an audiobook recording on cassette tape to accompany my cousin’s Christmas present one year – a hardback copy of the darling story of the family living in New York whose second son is somewhat like a mouse. A couple of years later, my cousin would actually recommend to me the one and only novel she had read that she thought I would enjoy, namely Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn-Dixie.
  • My high-school years found me roaming the Canadian countryside with orphan Anne Shirley, trying to speak eloquently like Elinor Dashwood, spending time with the March sisters in Massachusetts, and identifying keenly with the protagonist of Jane Eyre for still slightly unbeknownst reasons, considering I have never been a governess.
  • Reading has had tremendous significance in my life to date and has definitely played a major role in who and what I am today; reading is important to me because it allows me to go on adventures not likely to happen in my real life in the modern day; it is how I process most information since I am a visual learner; it connects me to different or similar emotions and personality characteristics I want to cultivate or avoid; I can go around the world without leaving home or achieve time-travel to have a cup of tea with a dear friend. Likewise, I find as an adult that my growing collection of vintage and rare books affords the opportunity for me to hold onto a bit of a stranger’s life through the inscriptions and notes written inside, such as pages left in the two English college textbooks dated April 15, 1943, and to vicariously relive my favorite historical eras through books that would have been indicative of pop culture in bookshops throughout the country with their release, such as my 1936 copy of Susannah of the Mounties by Muriel Denison that is a Shirely Temple movie tie-in edition.
  • My feelings and attitudes about reading are the reason I have the goals I do in regards to library and information science. Deep down, even when I couldn’t articulate it, I have always believed God blessed me with my love of books. He gave me a curiosity about people and places that is usually satisfied by well-written novels, a thirst for information typically quenched by well-researched answers, and a respect for how books can be little puzzle pieces from bygone times. “Librarian” checks those boxes quite well.

RLGing,

Sarah Hope

PS. I feel like this GIF of Brigitta Von Trapp from The Sound of Music (1965) pretty much sums up my childhood via GIPHY. The GIF doesn’t really open up properly, so you might need to use the link.☺

Library summer reading programs and what teachers can do!

Posted on by

Hello Everyone,

This week marks the beginning of the 2014 Summer Reading Program at my local public library. I fondly remember participating in the programs every summer for a few years in a row, until reading became its own reward. Since districts close to me are still in school until the end of this week, I was prompted to write this post to discuss the benefits of promoting the library’s summer reading program for elementary students in my classroom; below are the “Top 5” reasons I have for encouraging my students to participate.

Summer reading programs:

  1. encourages children to read for pleasure outside of school;
  2. helps children broaden their reading horizons through a wide array of authors and genres;
  3. assists parents and caregivers in sharing a love of books with their children by helping them with the selection of and reading of ten books (at my library, anyway);
  4. provides extrinsic motivation to those children who regard reading as a “just at school” thing; and
  5. shows children and their families the  many resources available through a public library.

As a classroom teacher, I have the responsibility to my students to make learning enjoyable and help them foster the desire to continue throughout their lives. Since I am an avid reader, I want to ignite that passion for books in my students; below are my “Top 5” ways to do just that.

In my classroom, I plan on:

  1. modeling for students my love of literature by engaging in Quiet Reading Time with them;
  2. inviting students to have “Book Talks” at least once a month to discuss a book they have read recently that might be fun for a classmate to read;
  3. making sure each student has access to books he or she can enjoy, rather than “tying” them to levels (which is a whole other post by itself);
  4. helping each student find a favorite book and building a list of “to read” books from that one, to provide some direction when choosing books at the school or public library; and
  5. encouraging students to participate in summer reading program at our local library, so reading becomes an enjoyable life-long habit.

So, to tie these two “Top 5” lists together, I plan on helping students find their literary passions, be it princesses, pirate ships, or play-dough and fostering that love through summer reading. If my school is still in session, when the library’s summer reading program comes around next year, I am going to get each of my students’ an entry form and conduct a read-aloud to be the first book on their lists!

Enthusiastically,

Ms. Tyler