Ellis Carter transcript
05/08/11

>>ELLIS: Hello. My name is Ellis Carter. So, how should I begin?

>>INTERVIEWER: Ellis, where are you from?

>>ELLIS: I'm from Texas. I was born in Austin, Texas. Moved.

>>INTERVIEWER: How old are you?

>>ELLIS: Ten.

>>INTERVIEWER: Already? Can you tell us a literacy story?

>>ELLIS: Well, my father's always been an extremely smart guy. He's always helped me with what flaws I had and all my questions. I was an extremely curious child. Too many questions. So I was [unsure].

>>INTERVIEWER: In other words, he was telling stories. He used to tell you stories, didn't he, at night? He would make them up and he would ask you, what's going to happen now. Is that right?

>>ELLIS: No.

>>INTERVIEWER: Tell me what kinds of questions you would ask that he would have answers for.

>>ELLIS: Well, questions like how does this work, how this works, how many other things work. He told me things that I knew of already to form intellect.

>>INTERVIEWER: He told you things that you knew but explained to give you more background.

>>ELLIS: Yes.

>>INTERVIEWER: I'm going to come around and sit with you, Ellis. Because, Ellis is my child, and when he was little we used to actually read aloud to him. And then, in the last few years, Ellis is starting to read out loud to us. I want to talk about some of the books you have read out loud to me. What was the first one, you think?

>>ELLIS: It didn't start out with my mom. It started with my father, who started out with the Checkers Guy.

>>INTERVIEWER: That's right. The Checkers guy. And then it was Hell Creek and then In Card. And then the most recent one was [unsure].

>>ELLIS: Yes.

>>INTERVIEWER: And I can tell you as somebody who has been read to, I really enjoy it because I get to sit and form images in my head, because Ellis is a really good reader.

>>ELLIS: I've always liked to read because as soon as my parents introduced me to it, it's always been really big readings, they've always had lots of childrens books, many suggestions. So I've always had good books to read. A kind of kick start. So, reading's always been really fun for me. And now I've adapted to greater books and greater books, so now I'm reading 16 year old books.

>>INTERVIEWER: It's really interesting because you read books that high school kids read and you're only 10. I think that's really exciting because you find it interesting and you tried it on your own, didn't you? Anyways, it's been really fun to have you read to me.