Your contribution helps to provide children around the world with books, activities, and educational resources.
I am so glad you stopped by. Making reading fun is what I do!
I love books and I especially enjoy choosing which children’s books I am going to promote.
I love you all so much & never forget how much Jesus loves you!
My mom always tells me stories about the time she gave me books around 6 months old. She said that I would sit myself up and flip through every page of each story. This always makes me laugh because you never know how the small things in life are grooming you for the future.
As a child my mom would always take me and my brother to the library and read to us. Once I got my own library card you couldn’t tell me a thing. I literally picked out as many books as I could carry and walked very proudly to the “checkout” counter. I probably swiped that card as much as your mom probably swipes her credit card at the Target hahaha.
Before I moved to the town that I currently live in now, the library where I grew up as a child was very small. Cute, but small. But, I loved it anyhow. There was even a reading club at the library that I loved and enjoyed.
But, somewhere along the line, reading was pushed aside.
Would you believe me if I said that my love for reading was put on hold once I got to middle school? I remember my last hoo ha with reading was the battle of the books event (is that still a thing?) and I was super excited. However, somewhere after the 6th grade; reading was sort of pushed to the side. Maybe it was because I started a new school and there wasn’t much time to read the books that I found fascinating. Instead, books were assigned to my classmates and I. And let me just be honest and say this; some were quite boring.
If you have gotten to a place where you loved reading, but then somehow you took a detour. Don’t worry I’ve been there, but I’m here to tell you; please do not stay there.
Around High school, I started to go back to the library and read mystery books along with a few other teenaged novels. I found those interesting and soon enough my love for reading gradually started to come back. But, I have to be honest, I didn’t get interested in starting a children’s reading club until I started working at a summer camp.
During my sophomore year of college, I came back home for the summer and started working at the school I had graduated from. I thought this was going to be fun and easy being that I knew almost everyone and everyone pretty much knew me. There were challenges, but hey, when you are working with kids there is always a surprise along the way. Now, keep in mind that I worked with pretty much the same group of kids all year long. The school year was straight forward, but when summer came around it was always a challenge.
“Reading time” was one of the scheduled activities for the camp. Personally, I thought this was a neat idea, but the kids disliked this activity very much. The older children were always complaining that the little kids were too loud (due to the fact that some required a reading buddy to read to them aloud). The little kids never wanted to fully read the book all the way, due to the fact that one person might not have liked the book selection. I mean the list goes on and on. I continued to observe the kids and soon came to the realization that “It wasn’t the actual reading time activity, it was the way it was being presented.”
Well you know me, I am going to find a way to make reading fun. I told the kids that if they did not give me nor any of the other workers any problems during reading time, I would bring treats at the end of the month if they were good. The treats usually consisted of some chips, juice boxes, toys, candy, and whatever else I could think of. Well, that worked for a little while, but after a good minute that got very old, very quick. I thought some more and came up with different games and activities to incorporate for the kids to do while reading time hour had begun. There were also times where I would read to the kids myself and just give them a break. I started to see that this plan was working and that kids love arts and crafts.
Before the pandemic hit, my mom kept telling me to start my reading club, but I kept thinking that I wouldn’t have time. Well, now that the pandemic is upon us, I have all the time in the world.
My main goal is to show kids all around the world just how much fun reading can be. You never know where God will take you in life and trust me, starting a reading club for kids was not something that I would have ever thought of doing. But just think that God was smiling down on 6month old me holding the books and saying “One day this will be apart of her future.” Yeah, I’d like to think that He said something like that.
And there you have it, MISS ERICA’S READING CLUB, INC.
To all of you who are reading this, I hope you are enjoying your reading journey with Miss Erica!
Thank you for your contribution to MISS ERICA'S READING CLUB, INC. You are helping to provide children around the world with books, activities, and educational resources.
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Miss Erica
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Miss Erica’s Reading Club