I was reading five or six years ahead of my grade during public school. I was pretty bored. I made a contract with some of my teachers that if I didn't ask too many questions, I could work in the back of the room.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Back in my younger years, I read an average of a book a day. That was when I was going to school full time and working a job after school 30 hours or more a week.
I wanted my students to leave my classroom loving reading and wanting to read more, and if they left my classroom thinking that reading is boring, then I haven't done my job.
I just finished my homework fast, I was bored to death. There wasn't 500 channels so there was a thing for a librarian to teach a kid like me about reading. I started reading early and I read all the time, because I love it.
When I was in kindergarten, I entered a competition and read 52 books in a week.
I always read a lot as a kid and I'd spend long periods of time in my room reading... I wasn't reading anything great until I got older, but I used to read Agatha Christie mysteries and all of Ian Fleming's 'James Bond' novels.
I loved to read and to write, but then something happened. As I made my way through school, I kept getting handed books to read that didn't excite me and didn't even remotely connect to the realities of my life.
I read books for exams at school, but only because I had to read them, and really didn't enjoy it one little bit! The only time I did enjoy it was when I was asked to read out loud in front of the class, as I then used it as an acting exercise!
I wanted to be a teacher, but I was a lousy student, one of the slowest readers. It was a tremendous struggle. But I'm lucky I had some teachers who saw something in me.
My mother brought us to the library every week, and I read a lot. That's what kept me company. I went from school to school, but there was always reading.
I didn't learn how to read until I was at the end of fifth grade and 11 years old and held back.