Since I’m a huge book nerd, I’m assuming that most people reading my blog are book nerds of varying degrees.  So I thought we could all share how our love of reading developed and was either discouraged or encouraged during school.  Here’s my story:

In grade one and two there was quite an excellent reading program at my school consisting of 26 levels you had to finish at the end of the second grade.  Well, the problem was that I mastered the books in each level too quickly but the teachers would not move me up the levels until I read every single book in them (although I was reading aloud fluently and had excellent reading comprehension).  Despite their efforts to hold me back, I was finished a month before school ended and my mother’s bitter fight with the school to get them to give me level-appropriate reading material began.

Middle school was an extremely boring joke.  By the time we were doing novel studies in grades 7, 8 and 9 I had already read all of the ones in the curriculum back in grade five and six.  My English teacher at this time was awesome and by grade nine she got tired of me spoiling the entire plots (I’ll admit I was a bit of a smartass and being bored/frustrated didn’t help).  So when I said yet again that I had already read the book we were about to study, she handed me an independent novel study booklet and let me use a book of my choosing.  I think I chose I, Claudius by Robert Graves and loved it.  Much better than the other option, which was reading a book I had read way back in the third grade (and could still summarize six years later).

So you could say school didn’t exactly encourage my love of reading, but thank goodness my parents did.  We didn’t always have money for things like new movies or toys but there was always money for books and for that I’ll always be grateful.  Without their support, I wouldn’t be writing this blog and my life would be a whole lot more boring and empty without it.

Well, now that you’ve heard my life story, I want to hear yours!  How did your school experiences affect your reading now?  Were they good or bad experiences?