{"id":1997,"date":"2022-01-06T14:53:31","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T20:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1997"},"modified":"2022-01-06T14:53:31","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T20:53:31","slug":"learning-to-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1997","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Read"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Children today read at a very early age.\u00a0 When I was a child in kindergarten, learning colors was the big deal.\u00a0 Reading didn\u2019t come until first grade.\u00a0 \u201cSee Spot.\u00a0 See Jane.\u00a0 See Dick and Jane.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1955, I entered kindergarten in the Vail Public School at the age of four.\u00a0 I would turn five a month after school began.\u00a0 Catholic schools didn\u2019t provide kindergarten in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

My memory of kindergarten is rather shaky, but as an adult, my mom filled in some details.\u00a0 One of those memories was precious.<\/p>\n

The kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Boeck.\u00a0 She talked to mom one day and told her that I had an exceptional memory.\u00a0 Would mom help me to memorize the words in a book so that I could pretend to narrate while other kindergartners acted out the story of the book?\u00a0 Mom agreed.<\/p>\n

By the way, I did have a unique memory.\u00a0 I can\u2019t say that it was a photographic memory or that I had perfect recall, but I never had a calendar to write things down until I was in my forties.\u00a0 Then, I wrote things down on the calendar because that is what people did.\u00a0 I was also whiz at Trivial Pursuit.\u00a0 I remembered things that didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

Mom didn\u2019t help me memorize; she taught me how to read.\u00a0 I was far ahead of my classmates in that respect.\u00a0 Several of them caught up to me as we progressed through elementary school.\u00a0 Many surpassed me in high school.\u00a0 My fault \u2013 I never truly applied myself.<\/p>\n

The big night came in the kindergarten room.\u00a0 All the parents were assembled in big people chairs.\u00a0 The kindergarten chairs were arranged in the front to represent trees.\u00a0 It was an imaginary forest.\u00a0 No longer do I remember the story, but I do recall Anne and Glen as two of the main characters.<\/p>\n

Mom was proud.\u00a0 She told me that my aunt thought her son should have had the role of narrating the story.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t get the part that was mine, but he may have had a more memorable part in the event that evening.\u00a0 Immediately prior to the beginning, mom said you could hear him yell as loud as anything: \u201cI have to go to the toilet.\u201d\u00a0 I guess my aunt nudged her husband, my uncle, and said: \u201cyou take him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Children today read at a very early age.\u00a0 When I was a child in kindergarten, learning colors was the big deal.\u00a0 Reading didn\u2019t come until first grade.\u00a0 \u201cSee Spot.\u00a0 See Jane.\u00a0 See Dick and Jane.\u201d In 1955, I entered kindergarten … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[933,934,932],"class_list":["post-1997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mrs-boeck","tag-trivial-pursuit","tag-vail-public-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1998,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997\/revisions\/1998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}