Parents' Reading
Umphers, Ida

IDA: My name is Ida Umphers and I am here to tell my story in tribute to my mother and father who read to me all the time when I was a young child and now I read all the time myself. I remember every time dad took a trip, he was in construction, he would come back with armloads of books and my mother, we would go to bed every night with a little bowl of sliced apples and I would have picked out two books to read and she would say we are going to read these two books and we would read "The Puppy-Love Puppy" or "The Little Engine that Could" or whatever. And we would eat our apples and then I would say, "Can we read one more book?" And we'd read one more book and "Could we read one more book?" And then we'd read one more book and this would have gone on all night until she said, "No, we're not reading this book again, we're not reading another book, it's time for you to go to bed." And I just wanted to tell everyone you cannot read to your children enough, they will love it, they will love you for it. I read the most books of anybody in my first grade class and I had to read those aloud to my mother as well. I followed her around the kitchen reading books and I still have a picture of me with a stack of books that's taller than I am from the first grade. And I think that carried on through the years, like I say I love to read and now I'm a teacher so I use literature books in my math education course and I just want parents out there to know they should read to their children. And thank you mom and dad for all the books and all the reading.