My First Introduction to Books

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Although I had been introduced to the Little Golden Books and story books before I started to school, I still have found memories of a teacher who took reading seriously but still made it fun. My second-grade teacher Mrs. Joan Elcess, had us read reading circle books. We would get stickers and bookmarks or candy for each one we read. I of course didn’t read fast, so the rewards were few. With vision problems they didn’t find until the third grade these things happen. I remember her on spring days she would either take us out on the school yard under a tree or she would raise the windows in the classroom, and she would sit on the edge of her desk and read to us. I looked forward to the time and enjoyed the stories she read. One of the first ones she read to us was Charlotte’s Web and the other was a series of books called The Boxcar Children. It’s something will never forget. She would read a chapter each day until she finished it. For a half hour or an hour, a day she would read to us at the end of the day as a reward for the classroom work that had been finished. To this day I have never forgotten the gesture. Perhaps some of the new teachers could learn from her and take her lead.

I remember her and several of my teachers fondly. They for the most part at the end of an unseen generation. The old ways weren’t always something that needed changing. Children need the imagination to feed their minds and improve the spirit, sometimes that’s all they have is what they have at school. When something isn’t broke, don’t fix it. It may be an old way of doing things, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t the best way. Thank you, Mrs. Elcess, for your attention and love to your students and to the love of reading from one of your students.

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