Return of Memoryfest - Day 31/31
Jan. 30th, 2007 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicLast day. *sniff* Suddenly I am assaulted with ideas for memories, and room for only one of them. Let’s go back to the beginning. Or one of many beginnings.
31. Pre-school, Kindergarten, possibly Elementary School
The first book I remember reading had a duck for a main character. It was a picture book about making friends, I think. At the end, the duck and its friends gathered around a pond with lily pads and cat-tails, and there were plates with stacks of pancakes topped with butter and maple syrup.
There’s also a brief memory of one of those squishy waterproof books that you can take into the bathtub, but to tell the story would embarrass my sister, so we’ll leave it at that.
Later, I remember sitting on the couch in the living room next to my dad, as we often did while I was learning to read bigger books with more complicated vocabulary. I paused or stumbled over a long word, and he taught me how to break it down into easily pronounceable syllables. Take it one syllable at a time, he said, rather than trying to tackle the whole thing at once. For years and years afterwards, when someone reading out loud in class would fumble or freak out at a big word in a passage, I’d scoff (in my head) that they didn’t know this trick. (When what I really should have done was be grateful for having a father so patient and loving and excellent at teaching.)
And this is me at the tender age of two, doing what I do best. My dad snapped the photo on his Nikon slide camera as I slept in the car seat in Yellowstone Park.
And... there we have it. One month; 31 top-level memories and many, many more in comments. Stay tuned--the post-mortem is coming up this weekend.
31. Pre-school, Kindergarten, possibly Elementary School
The first book I remember reading had a duck for a main character. It was a picture book about making friends, I think. At the end, the duck and its friends gathered around a pond with lily pads and cat-tails, and there were plates with stacks of pancakes topped with butter and maple syrup.
There’s also a brief memory of one of those squishy waterproof books that you can take into the bathtub, but to tell the story would embarrass my sister, so we’ll leave it at that.
Later, I remember sitting on the couch in the living room next to my dad, as we often did while I was learning to read bigger books with more complicated vocabulary. I paused or stumbled over a long word, and he taught me how to break it down into easily pronounceable syllables. Take it one syllable at a time, he said, rather than trying to tackle the whole thing at once. For years and years afterwards, when someone reading out loud in class would fumble or freak out at a big word in a passage, I’d scoff (in my head) that they didn’t know this trick. (When what I really should have done was be grateful for having a father so patient and loving and excellent at teaching.)
And this is me at the tender age of two, doing what I do best. My dad snapped the photo on his Nikon slide camera as I slept in the car seat in Yellowstone Park.
And... there we have it. One month; 31 top-level memories and many, many more in comments. Stay tuned--the post-mortem is coming up this weekend.
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Date: Jan. 31st, 2007 11:01 pm (UTC)I remember my favourite childhood book was about a dachshund, with the same name as *our* dachshund -- or so I thought. When I finally learned to read, i was so horrified to see that that was not really the name of the dog in the book! I cannot express how truly crushing that feeling was. I think that was the root of my present cynicism about the world.
I wish I had a baby picture of myself reading like you learned lot -- but I think I spent most of my childhood in the swimming pool, till I discovered Trixie Belden!
no subject
Date: Feb. 2nd, 2007 02:37 am (UTC)LOL. Poor
Did I miss out, never having read Trixie Belden books? I did devour Nancy Drew books for a couple of years....
no subject
Date: Feb. 2nd, 2007 03:50 am (UTC)I think I had devoured all the Nancy Drew books by the end of Grade 4. But she has stuck with me somehow, fused to my world view ;-)
I must pimp the Nancy Drew computer games. They are SO MUCH FUN! I even have Elynittria hooked!