The Joy of Reading

When we are children, our parents, for the most part, try to set us up with a routine... a nightly ritual to help us fall asleep. Usually it goes along the lines of a nice warm bath, turning on the nightlight to scare away the monsters, and then reading a story. A story was always my favorite part. Every night I would go to my bookshelf, a smaller version of the ones my parent had, that offered a variety of books including Pound Puppies (and Kitties), Precious Moments, Golden Books... and classics such as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and Where the Wild Things Are. I would take the book up the stairs to my room and my dad would read to me.

Despite these fond memories of reading with my dad, I myself am a rather slow reader and have never found myself wanting to read for pleasure. My mind likes to take in each word and make sure that I am getting the true meaning of each sentence or paragraph... therefore, sometimes I feel compelled to go back and reread sentences. The task of reading, even if just for fun, has often been a rather tedious job. I have always been jealous of people who can breeze over the page in a fraction of the time that it would take me. I am in fact a fan of skimming and scanning for vital information related to researching papers and reading assessments. When I actually read for content though, I disect the passages and usually end up with a headache.

Over the past 18 months, I have dedicated my life to learning a foreign language; I can proudly say I am officially bilingual and am fluent in listening, speaking, and reading. This has sparked my interest in reading books in my free time to gain more information about their culture.

I'm proud to say that yesterday I finished the first book, cover to cover, in approximately four years. Last Christmas, I began reading a book of folk tales on my exodus from work during my series of seven flights to and from my hometown, but I never really got to finishing that last section of stories...

Prior to this, I never really found reading fun. I saw it as an obligation. Reading has made me sick on car rides, given me headaches, and taken time away from doing other things... things I found, at the time, to be more important. In college, I simply listened to lectures and took exquisite notes rather than read the required texts. I actually received better grades in those courses where I did this when compared to the classes where I read each text.

I had always taken the ability to read (since age 5) and write (since age 3) for granted. Twenty years later, I am finally learning to enjoy reading. Today, I am already a few chapters into a new book that I plan on finishing by the end of the year. This is the time of year when we take a look at our lives and consider what we are thankful for and what we hope to improve upon in the new year... Considering the fact that I have learned a foreign language that most native speakers cannot read... I have realized how lucky I am to be literate.