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Every morning when my dad would wake me up, he would always put on my TV to PBS. Of all the shows they had for children, "Between the Lions" was always a favorite. It really encouraged reading and the special messages you can find within books.
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In the first grade, my teacher made these "phones" out of PVC pipes so you could whisper what we were reading into one end and hear ourselves on the other end that was on your ear, like a telephone. These helped me and the other students a lot with sounding out words and being able to overcome unknown vocabulary.
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My third grade teacher loved reading and encouraged it to all of her students. During the school year, she would assign 30 minutes of reading for homework. On those nights, she would randomly choose 3 or 4 students to call up between certain times, and if you were reading when she called, you would get an in-class reward. When she called she would ask what you were reading and what was happening in your book. This encouraged reading all of the time.
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Every summer, our local library would host a reading program that would track how many books you read that summer. My brother and I would always sign up and compete against each other. At certain amount of books read, there would be prizes given out. These times would encourage me to read more and figure out what kind of books I truly liked to read.
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Scholastic Book Fairs made me so excited to buy new books. I was always allowed two new books to get each time there was a fair. I remember before it came, the school librarian would show a promotional video about what books would be coming to give students an idea of what they might want to get.
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Every summer before I entered a new school, my mom would put my brother and I in reading classes provided by UNLV. We would go to the campus, be put in a class with students around the same age, and we would be assigned a book to read and analyze. These classes would go over strategies on how to read better, faster, and understand the text. These classes assigned the hardest books because sometimes you can't always read what you want.
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Getting older into my middle school years, books became less interesting because their movie adaptations were being made. My mom and brother had both gotten into "The Hunger Games" trilogy, and I wanted to read it, too. As I was reading it, the movie was just about to come out, but my mom told me I could not see the movie until I finished the book. This strange command made me realize that the book is, usually, always better.
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Through most of my high school years, my mom was always in a book club with her friends. I actually joined in on one book because it was based in an era I was very interested in. Being in a club and being able to discuss everyone's views on the same text was a neat experience. It showed me there are always different interpretations of books.
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In high school, if you were going into an Honors or AP English class, you were always assigned books to read the summer before you enter them. I was never impressed with assigned readings because I just wanted to read what I was interested in. One summer we read George Orwell's "1984", and it made me change my whole perspective of assigned readings. It wasn't the book itself, but what my teacher could do with it. We did assignments and discussions on this book for over two months.
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In my AP English class, we would do timed writings every Friday. Timed writings were for preparing us for the AP test. We would have 40 minutes to write an essay on a topic you would see for the first time when you turned the paper over. These were frustrating and stressful, but it was motivation to read and understand what you were reading so you could successfully answer the prompt.
