Do You Feel Joy and Pride for Others' Children Reading?
By Pigglies
@Pigglies (9329)
United States
November 26, 2008 12:19am CST
I love hearing children read. I was volunteering working the gift shop the other day at the marine mammal wildlife rehab, which is something I don't normally do because usually I only work with the animals. A grandmother was with her granddaughter picking out a book to buy for her. The kid must have only been about 5 years old. At that age, I couldn't even read. At first the grandmother picked out our simplest book available, a cardboard book with only a few pages. The young girl saw the beautiful Zoobooks display and wanted one of those. Her grandmother told her she wouldn't get her one just to look at the pictures, so the girl swore she could read it. The grandmother asked her to prove it and pointed to a passage. The girl read this Zoobook effortlessly! And she was like 5! I couldn't believe it, it was so cute and so miraculous. Not only did her grandmother look very proud but I was quite proud of the child as well. I cannot even read one of those books so well as that young child did, so I was quite impressed.
Do you feel joy hearing children read? Are you only proud of your own children or others as well? If you never had to struggle with reading, does it still seem like an accomplishment to you?
2 people like this
3 responses
@PrincessKitten (790)
• United States
26 Nov 08
What a lovely story! Thank you for sharing!
I am proud of all children when I see them progressing well. These children are going to be adults one day and need to be as competent as possible!
My friend's 2-year-old daugher was not doing too well and no one was teaching her anything. Since my friend worked the night shift, she desperately needed flexible childcare and when I offered her my services at a cost that was lower than she could find anywhere else, she hired me.
Now her daughter knows some colors, shapes, letters and numbers because I work with her when she's here. It makes me VERY happy to see her learning and growing.
She's 6 months younger than my daughter, but I hope to have them close to the same level in a couple of months.
Happy MyLotting!
1 person likes this
@Pigglies (9329)
• United States
26 Nov 08
Oh that is great to hear that you are helping your friend's daughter!
A couple of my coworkers have kids and some of them say that with the daycare unfortunately their kids aren't learning things as quickly as they should be. It definitely makes me want to be able to take at least only half days at work when I have young children (or have my wife do so). When I was growing up my parents both worked from home and could take breaks to spend time with me and my brother throughout the day. And while I doubt I'll work from home, I would love for my kids to have a similar opportunity so that they could learn rather than just be stuck in front of a TV at an average babysitter's home.
@SomeCowgirl (32189)
• United States
26 Nov 08
My fiance and I don't have kids yet. However, it doesn't matter who the kids is I think it's so sweet to hear a child read and watch them as they sound out the words. It's fun to see how exciting they get when they get a word right, and, so yes I do love to see the joy that it brings to not only the child, not only the mother or father, but also the joy I have in my heart to hear a child read.
@Pigglies (9329)
• United States
26 Nov 08
I don't have kids yet either. I used to tutor children and a lot of the kids I tutored were gifted so they didn't even have to sound out the words usually, they just read (as did this girl I saw reading this weekend, I could hardly believe it!).
The kids I tutored were grades K-3 so they were a bit older, but still I didn't learn to read yet myself at that age so that's still impressive to me.
I did tutor a few kids that required extra work though too and I think that having reading problems gave me an edge on motivating them. I had one kid with ADHD who was very hard to motivate but if I gave him a sticker for every single paragraph he read I could get some reading out of him. And then I had a kindergarten student whose parents didn't speak much English so he had a great deal of trouble with reading, but he was still in kindergarten so it wasn't bad. But his parents always thought that it was horrible that he wasn't doing better so I would work with him a lot (it was 1 tutor to 3 kids where I worked, but since the other 2 at that time were gifted they needed less help). I was always impressed with all of them reading at such a young age. And yes, you are so right that they love to get words right, and whole paragraphs! And they got great pleasure if they could catch a mistake that I made, hehe.
1 person likes this
@SomeCowgirl (32189)
• United States
26 Nov 08
I myself had trouble reading in school, but once I got it I got it, and I was gone.. I loved to read then after, I believe, but then being school that changed. I think it's great you worked with those students especially the little boy who was struggling with his English. Being so young, he probably hasn't even grasped his language yet and learning another one had to be hard as I'm sure he wanted to relate words he read in english to those he spoke in his language.
