How some now-adult unschooling parents learned to read

How important is it that parents read aloud to children?
Generally speaking it is held to be unquestionably sacrosanct.

By rinag on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 07:22 am:

[someone had written:]—The love dh and I have for books and the value we placed on reading certainly contributed to her determination, but a lack of interest on our part wouldn't have held her back for long.—

My mom (and dad) NEVER - and I mean not once - read to us. When I started school at 6, I didn't know how to read. There weren't many books in our house either. By the end of the first two weeks of school I had read every book in the classroom and a month later I started on Little Women.

Rina

By Jenny Cyphers (Jenny) on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 12:25 pm:

It was kind of the opposite for me. My parents read to us all the time. Not stupid kids books, but real books. So, when I went to school, I had no desire to read, didn't understand the alphabet really, and I hated the stories that we were forced to read because they were sooooo boring, but I loved it when others read to me and I loved words and had a pretty large vocabulary and loved to write letters.

In first grade I got spanked by the principal for reading when I wasn't supposed to. It was one of those moments where I was just grasping a reading connection. That and many other control issues in school took the desire and passion out of books for me until I was about 9 or 10 when I discovered Nancy Drew books at my library.

Jenny

NOTE FROM SANDRA, the collector and webpage monitor:

This is not intended to discourage people from reading to their children! People should read if kids want to be read to. It's just a reminder that no one thing is the magical ingredient, but that many things together lead to reading, and never before the child is ready to do it.