Betty Peck, aos 92 anos, exala uma beleza radiante que evoca fadas. 
Madrinhas e jardins encantados. Visitá-la é um pouco como cair na toca do coelho da Alice. Uma linha férrea com um trem de verdade circunda sua casa em Saratoga. Há paredes cobertas de hera, caminhos sinuosos e tortuosos, casas na árvore, até mesmo uma torre da Rapunzel e um anfiteatro sob as árvores, completo com uma sacada ao estilo Romeu e Julieta. Centenas de crianças brincaram no riacho banhado de sol, encantadas com a sensação da terra sob os pés descalços e maravilhadas com um mundo repleto de criatividade, beleza e encanto. Este é o mundo que Betty Peck presenteou a várias gerações de crianças.
E agora, essa professora incrível tem um novo projeto que a entusiasma profundamente. Um projeto que ela descreve com suas próprias palavras abaixo, e que começa com uma pergunta simples, porém profunda...
Quero saber como você aprendeu a ler.
Aprender a ler é a coisa mais importante que nos acontece, e acontece (para a maioria) na infância. Meu marido, Willys Peck, aprendeu a ler pelo "Método Pooh". Aqui estão as palavras dele sobre esse evento incrível:
O Método Pooh de Aprendizagem da Leitura
Quando eu era criança, meus pais liam livros para mim e meu irmão. Meus favoritos eram os livros do Ursinho Pooh e A Casa no Bosque dos Cem Acres, de A.A. Milne. Embora eu não me esforçasse conscientemente para memorizar as histórias, descobri, ao ouvi-las várias vezes, que conseguia recitar os parágrafos iniciais de memória. Um dia, enquanto olhava para o livro e recitava de memória, percebi que estava captando palavras além daquelas que havia memorizado. Foi naquele momento que percebi que estava lendo! É por isso que chamo isso de aprender a ler pelo Método Pooh.
Aprender a ler foi a coisa mais importante que me aconteceu na primeira série; foi o que me ajudou a me tornar quem sou hoje. Escrevi sobre isso no meu livro: Educação Infantil – Libertando o Potencial Criativo das Crianças (Hawthorne Press).
Minha avó me contava todos os contos de fadas e canções de ninar. Feliz é a criança que guarda todas essas palavras de sabedoria ancestral. Eu, por minha vez, me tornaria a contadora de histórias para meus irmãos e irmãs.
Lembro-me do dia em que aprendi a ler. Eu também acredito, assim como John Steinbeck, que "É talvez o maior esforço que um ser humano pode empreender, e ele deve fazê-lo quando criança". Lembro-me do dia em que levei meu livro de bolso para casa para ler para minha mãe quando eu estava na primeira série. Eu tinha aprendido a ler! A emoção dessa expectativa de poder ler para minha mãe ainda permanece comigo.
Na minha memória, estávamos sentadas juntas perto da porta da frente. Li o livro inteiro para ela com grande prazer e alegria. Quando terminei, ela me disse: "Agora leia de trás para frente". Ela não acreditava que eu tivesse aprendido a ler! Com ainda mais alegria do que antes, li o livro inteiro de trás para frente. Foi naquele momento que senti que estava me descobrindo. Eu havia me tornado mais do que imaginava. Agora, eu usaria a palavra "transcendida" para descrever essa ocasião, pois agora eu sabia o que minha mãe não podia saber. Eu, e somente eu, conhecia esse maravilhoso segredo: eu havia aprendido a ler. Eu não precisava de uma comemoração; aprender a ler já era uma comemoração suficiente.
Quando minha neta Sarah aprendeu a ler, perguntei se uma foto dela lendo para sua irmã, Merina, poderia ser colocada na sala infantil da biblioteca da nossa vila para celebrar sua conquista. A foto foi pendurada para comemorar uma das etapas mais importantes da vida, que por acaso acontece na infância.
Foi a biblioteca perto de casa, em Los Angeles, que alimentou meu amor pela literatura. Minha mãe lia para mim. Líamos até o último minuto antes do prazo de devolução do livro, e então eu corria para a biblioteca de patins, sempre sozinha. Mas foi a Sra. Laverne Perrin, minha professora da sétima série na Escola Bel Pasi, quem me apresentou à grande literatura mundial. Tínhamos que aprender um poema por semana. Ela lia obras de Sir Walter Scott e, em um estilo diferente, "A Cabana do Pai Tomás"; era um livro em que nos prendíamos a cada palavra. Tenho certeza de que ela lia para nós tudo o que amava, pois me lembro de sua grande paixão por esses livros. Cada história era mais do que suas palavras: era todo o universo da história, cultura, natureza, filosofia, religião e psicologia. Graças a essa herança, hoje leio e releio vários livros por dia, todos os quais possuo em minha biblioteca.
A leitura é um dos eventos mais importantes na vida de um ser humano, e acontece na infância. Você já parou para pensar em todas as habilidades necessárias para aprender a ler? Esse evento fascinante é uma dádiva divina.
O que fazemos com esse dom ajuda a definir quem somos, e como professora, sinto-me privilegiada por ajudar os pais de crianças em idade pré-escolar a construir a base para cidadãos produtivos que crescem amando a leitura. Espero que celebrações e rituais possam ser criados em torno do momento em que uma criança aprende a ler. Levou todo esse tempo para percebermos que este é um momento mágico que precisa ser reconhecido.
Como você aprendeu a ler? Adoraria ouvir sua história.
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12 PAST RESPONSES
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!