I Know Now What I Knew Then, PART One

What I know now is that I was a lucky kid.

As a kid, I grew up on a small farm in Indiana with a stay-at-home mom and a factory-working, farm-loving dad.

Most everything we ate was homegrown; I remember trips to the grocery store for a family of 7, needing only to buy basics like flour, baking soda, and salt.  This helped us afford the occasional luxury of popsicles in the summertime or Ritz crackers and spreadable cheese for a holiday treat.  (Those are some of those inexplicable things that I still love.)

One thing that was always evident in our lives was the value of literacy.  There was (and still is) a beautiful old barrister bookcase in my parents' living room, laden with books like Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, A Farewell to Arms and The Wizard of Oz.  I have vivid memories of my dad's buying boxes of books at auctions.  We even discovered books like Black Beauty and Jane Eyre for ten cents each at second-hand stores.  Our home library flourished, each child with his/her own collection of books at our bedside.  (Now I know that this is a sign that a reader will succeed; not every kid is so lucky.)


As fifth in a line of six children, my oldest sister was nine years my senior... with two more sisters and a brother between our ages, and a younger brother who came along 12 years later.  Having older siblings meant that I was aware of school by a very young age; I can remember my "preschool" years of watching all of those siblings get on the bus, disappearing for 8 hours to this place I could only dream of... sometimes, that meant boredom, but I mostly rolled with the times.

During those years, I had my mother to myself (a rare gift in a large family), "helping" her with chores on occasion, hanging out with the dog when I waited for her to return to the house from taking care of farm animals in winter, making special lunches, inventing and learning games, playing "school" with my dolls and stuffed animals, coloring pictures, and cutting paper dolls from the Sears, Spiegel, or Montgomery Ward catalogs.  I was a lucky kid.

My birth order also contributed to my love of literacy.  When my sisters and brother came home from school, they did their homework while I impatiently waited for their attention (okay, I probably drove them crazy).  I asked them questions and observed all sorts of reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. One of the merits of having so many siblings was that there was almost always someone available for a good time.  But, if they were busy with chores and homework, I found another pastime:  my brother's "papers."



My older brother, who was closest to my age, was also one of the least scholarly of the brood.  He would bring home papers (aka, workbook pages) to show to my parents, often with several errors marked.  After their "discussions" about his work, I would ask him if I could have his papers.  He was always more than happy to chuck them my way.

I would take my "Chinese People" erasers (pictured here) and diligently erase his work.


At first, I would ask him to help me read the questions and explain anything that I didn't understand.  He even helped with with spelling the answers.  (Now I know that this was probably good for reinforcing his learning, as well.)  Eventually, I erased and completed his papers on my own, submitting them to another family member for "grading."  I remember the occasional exclamations (to my brother's chagrin), "Look what Sissy did!  Geez!  Pretty good for a little kid!"  And so I believed in myself as a student, though I had yet to walk into a school.  Now I know that this is a wonderful outlook on the world, especially one's confidence as a learner.

Lucky for me, as the schools adopted new textbooks, they would allow the kids to take home the older editions.  One year, he and two of my sisters brought home hardcover readers of Dick, Jane, and Sally and friends, ranging from first to six grade in levels.  That was the beginning of the magic.

     

I was four.  I had some basic sight words from all of those worksheets... and I loved a good story, especially about kids like these with such idyllic lives.  I was ready! (Now I know that the beginning materials were "just right" for my emerging reading level, my interest and motivation was sparked, and I had timely feedback to support my efforts.  Learning was even social for me because of my large family.)  I remember practicing reading the stories until I had them down-pat.  (Now I know that this added to my knowledge of story language, sight vocabulary, fluency and prosody.)  As I moved along from one reader to the next, I yearned to learn more and found all of the support I could want from my family.

What I know now is that I was a lucky kid.

---continued in tomorrow's post---