92歳のベティ・ペックは妖精を思わせるような輝く愛らしさに満ちている
ゴッドマザーと魔法の庭園。彼女を訪ねると、まるでアリスのウサギの穴に落ちていくような気分になります。サラトガにある彼女の家の周りは、本物の列車が走る線路で囲まれています。ツタに覆われた壁、曲がりくねった小道、ツリーハウス、ラプンツェルの塔、そして木々の下にはロミオとジュリエットのバルコニーを備えた円形劇場もあります。何百人もの子供たちが、木漏れ日の差し込む小川で遊び、裸足で土の感触を味わい、創造性、美しさ、そして驚きに満ちた世界に歓喜しました。これこそ、ベティ・ペックが何世代にもわたって子供たちに贈り続けた世界なのです。
そして今、この素晴らしい先生は、心からワクワクしている新しいプロジェクトに取り組んでいます。そのプロジェクトについて、彼女は自身の言葉で以下のように説明しています。それは、シンプルでありながら深い問いから始まります…
どうやって読むことを学んだのか知りたいです。
読み方を学ぶことは、私たちにとって最も重要な出来事であり、多くの場合、幼少期に起こります。私の夫、ウィリス・ペックは「プーメソッド」で読み方を学びました。この素晴らしい出来事について、彼はこう語っています。
プーさんの読書法
子供の頃、両親は私と弟に本をよく読んでくれました。一番のお気に入りは、A・A・ミルンの『くまのプーさん』と『プーさんのいる家』でした。物語を暗記しようと意識的に努力したわけではありませんでしたが、何度も聞くうちに、冒頭の段落を暗唱できるようになりました。ある日、その本を見ながら暗唱していると、実際に暗記した単語以外にも、自分が言葉を拾っていることに気づきました。その時、自分が本を読んでいると気づいたのです！だから私はこれを「プーさんメソッドによる読書学習」と呼んでいます。
小学校1年生の時に私が経験した中で、最も大切な出来事は、読み書きを学んだことでした。それが今の私を形作ってくれました。このことについては、著書『幼稚園教育 ― 子どもの創造的可能性を解放する』（ホーソーン・プレス）に書いています。
祖母は私にたくさんのおとぎ話や童謡を聞かせてくれました。こうした古代の知恵の言葉をすべて持っている子は幸運です。そして私は、兄弟姉妹たちの物語の語り部となるでしょう。
読み方を覚えた日のことを覚えています。ジョン・スタインベックの言葉に倣い、私も「それはおそらく人間が行う最大の努力であり、子供時代にやらなければならない」と信じています。小学1年生の時、ペーパーバックの本を家に持ち帰り、母に読んで聞かせた日のことを覚えています。読み方を覚えたのです！母に読み聞かせができるというあのワクワク感は、今でも忘れられません。
記憶の中で、私たちは玄関からそう遠くないところに一緒に座っていました。私は喜びと喜びに満ちて、母に本を全部読み聞かせました。読み終えると、母は「今度は逆から読んで」と言いました。母は私が読めるようになったとは信じてくれなかったのです！ 以前よりも喜びにあふれ、私は本を逆から読みました。まさにその瞬間、私は真の自分を見つけたような気がしました。自分が思っていた以上の存在になっていたのです。今、私はこの機会に「超越した」という言葉を使いたいと思います。なぜなら、今、私は母が知り得なかったことを知ったからです。私だけが、この素晴らしい秘密を知っていたのです。私は読めるようになったのです。お祝いなど必要ありませんでした。読めるようになっただけで、それで十分だったのです。
孫のサラが読み書きを覚えた時、私は、サラが妹のメリナに読み聞かせをしている写真を、村の図書館の児童室に飾って、読み書きを覚えたことを祝ってほしいと頼みました。その写真は、人生で最も重要な節目の一つである幼少期の出来事を祝うものとして飾られました。
私の文学への愛を育んでくれたのは、家の近くにあったロサンゼルスの図書館でした。母は私に本を読んでくれました。私たちは返却期限ギリギリまで読み続け、それから私はスケート靴を履いて図書館へ駆け込みました。いつも一人でした。しかし、世界の偉大な文学に私を導いてくれたのは、ベル・パシ・スクールで中学1年生の時にお世話になったラバーン・ペラン先生でした。私たちは毎週詩を一つ覚えなければなりませんでした。先生はサー・ウォルター・スコットの作品を読み、また違った趣向の『アンクル・トムの小屋』は、私たちが一言一句聞き逃さないようにしました。きっと、先生は愛読していたものをすべて私たちに読んでくれたのでしょう。なぜなら、私は先生がこれらの本に並々ならぬ情熱を抱いていたことを覚えているからです。それぞれの物語は、言葉以上の意味を持っていました。それは歴史、文化、自然、哲学、宗教、心理学といったあらゆる領域を網羅していたのです。こうした先生の教えのおかげで、私は今では自分の書斎に所蔵している本を、毎日何冊も読み、何度も読み返しています。
読書は人生において最も重要な出来事の一つであり、幼少期に起こります。読書をできるようになるには、どれほどのスキルが必要か、考えたことがありますか？この素晴らしい出来事は、まさに神からの贈り物です。
この贈り物をどう使うかは、私たちが何者かを決める鍵となります。教師として、幼稚園児の親御さんが、読書を愛する豊かな人間性を育てるための基盤を築くお手伝いができることを光栄に思います。現代の子どもたちが読み書きを学ぶこの瞬間を、お祝いや儀式として大切にしていきたいと思っています。この魔法のような瞬間を、認識すべきだと気づくまでに、長い時間がかかりました。
どうやって読み方を覚えたんですか？あなたのお話をぜひ聞かせてください。
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My best friend taught me how to read. He was three years older than me. Every day after school in his first year he would come over and show me what he'd learned at school that day using the book Green Eggs and Ham. He died two years ago at age 58, I will miss him for the rest of my life.
I remember walking in to kindergarten and straight for the bookshelf. My beautiful new teacher (who was really 80 years old) said to my mother "oh I see we have a reader on our hands, how wonderful is that"? From that day forward, I have always considered myself just that "a reader" and have always lived up to the expectation of my kindergarten teacher. Thank you Mrs. Quaker!!
Satya Narain Goel
In India Ramayan written by Tulsidas is the most read book. For centuries, generations after generations, the women learned to read to enable them to read the story of Ram and Sita in Ramayan. Apart from religious and spritual side of the epic, which Ramayan is, it has made a tremendous contribution to the reading habits of women in India.
Satya Narain Goel, Jodhpur, Rajasthan. India
I cannot remember a time that I wasn't being read to by my parents. My mother had a gift for reading with accents and regional dialects which enthralled me and my siblings. I had numerous children's stories memorized and then I "read" those to my siblings (I have no recollection of the moment when the memorization became truly reading on my own). My father found children's books read over and over and over quite tedious, but he noticed that children love to sit with you and be read to, no matter what is being read (the special attention given the child is the most important part). So, he read what he liked aloud to me and thus, I heard the Wall Street Journal each evening and learned incredible language skills that have served me all my life! My vocabulary skills were enhanced all while I was having a wonderful time. Two of the ladies who babysat my siblings and me would bring stacks of books and read and read until they were hoarse and on the verge of losing their voices! We all three gathered on the couch and were enthralled all evening long. My, we were so blessed! I still love books and reading and stopping wherever there is a bookstore; bookstores even smell wonderful!
[Hide Full Comment]In Eastern India there is a annual festival called Saraswati Puja which revolves around the deity of learning, Saraswati. When a child is about 3 or 4 years old he or she sits down with other children of the same age and they are shown how to write the first alphabet in the Bengali script. Each child has her/ his own miniature handheld blackboard and chalk and it is a occasion of celebration that the child is progressing away from babyhood and getting ready for formal education. The child feels part of a group and seeing the adults reaction they are also enthusiastic about starting to read the alphabet.
Hi Betty,
My mother read to us from early on. She and I would sit in a big chair together, and she would read to me, annunciating each word clearly. So, I learned to read early on. she took delight in showing me off to the family at christmas time, when I recited "twas the night before christmas," from memory. I believe her strong focus on enunciation helped me learn how to read and spell well.
I was 4 years old. My mother was pregnant with my first little brother and she would take a hot bath every morning. I would sit on the bathroom floor with the newspaper spread out on the floor in front of me with my right hand on her tummy to feel the baby move. She would teach me about roots, prefixes and suffixes, how most words were Greek or Latin in origin. I would stumble through the article she chose and she taught me how to find meaning of words I didn't know through context. She was very strict and a very difficult woman to please, but she raised a true reader. I never read children's books. She never talked "baby talk". She felt that if you learn that way, then you would have to un-learn that to learn "real" language. I was an extremely gifted child and she challenged me, constantly. I don't ever remember anyone reading aloud to me, I read aloud to them.
Amazes me that people can remember when they learned to read. The earliest memory I know of is in second grade for me. I am sure I learned to read before then. Sorry.
Beautiful!
Books were my friends. My father was career Army so we moved every year until I was in high school. I learned to read early. My mother still talks about the day when I was in first grade and the teachers asked me to read a story to the third graders. In high school I spent my summers reading from books picked out from the Book mobile. I loved the Book mobile. I can still visualize the driver who would patiently help me find my books and the coolness of the air inside on those hot days. I read all of the available Agatha Christie novels that summer. Today I am the organizer of a neighborhood book club. We have 13 members. We all have been together for 10 years. We lost one member to cancer and we honor her memory by donating books to a needy cause. Reading has shaped my life.
I was four years old. My Grandmother Quigney taught me to read. Every day she would take a break from work cuddle up in her recliner by the living room window and read. Often she would read aloud to me from Reader's Digest or The Education of Hyman Kaplan or Cheaper by the Dozen. And she would read children's picture books, nursery rhymes and of course Winnie the Pooh. I would follow along trying to decipher the swirls on the page. And then one day it just clicked and I read a book about a pony who tries to keep up with the horses; how fitting. Thanks to my Grandmother's efforts I read Every book in my elementary school library. In adulthood (after jobs in women's health & cancer research), I was a Children's Librarian. I had the blessing of creating an entire program and helping thousands of children develop an appreciation for books and reading.
Today I am a Cause-Focused Storyteller & Literacy Advocate. I sold my home & possessions in 2005 to create/facilitate a volunteer literacy project in Belize; the initial thrust was book drives & reading activities. Since then I've donated programs for 33,000 children & trained 800 teachers how to use their own cultural stories in school. I've just returned from Ghana where I donated literacy training for librarians at 6 library/community centers. All because my Grandma instilled a Passion for books & taught me to read. Thank you for your Passion & sharing the Love of reading.
[Hide Full Comment]I learned to read in school, very early in the first grade. I loved the individual letters and their sounds, so I was using phonics before anyone had even coined the term. I like music and language seemed the same thing to me. The individual letter-noises could be combined to make familiar and unfamiliar words, so when I struck an unfamiliar word I knew that had happened, and wanted to learn what those sound patterns were for. It was all very easy and effortless. I was ready in the first grade, and those were the years before child care and kindergarten. We had a lot of kids in the first and second grades (in one room with one teacher) so I had lots of time to myself to play with the sound combinations and see where they went. I am glad I predated the hubbub of day care and kindergarten. We went to school because we were grown up enough to be allowed to, and it was a huge thrill!