Publisher: dwinger Volume No. 2 Issue No 44 Date Nov. 11, 03
Today was National Young Readers Day, and I had the honor of attending the kindergarten class of Mrs. Williams. I was asked to share why reading was important to me, and how I used it in my everyday life. I also got to read the kids a story or two.
I have decided that reading and sharing with kindergarten age and high school age is about the same. They either all want to talk at the same time, or they all just sit and say nothing. At times like these I try and remember what Papoo told me when I first started to teach high school age kids. He said, “ Davin, they will only remember about 10% of what you say, but they will remember 90% of how you act.”
I can’t help but be energized when I walk into a kindergarten class. There are smiles abounding and for the most part the kids are eager to find out just who in the world is this big loud man. I sat down with the kids, and Mrs. Williams introduced me. I then asked all the kids to tell me their name. When I asked them to come in a little closer, I thought a few were going to get into my lap. Then I had to tell them to back away and give me some room. I told them how much I love to read, and showed today’s newspaper and the things I read in it like the weather, the markets, and of course who could forget sports. I 
brought along my four-wheeler owners manual and showed the oil-smudged pages where I had found how to change the oil in my four-wheeler. The things that seemed to impress them the most was that we might get snow on Thursday, and they seemed to get real excited about four-wheelers and dirt bikes in general. I think the boys and I could have had a fine conversation about motorcycles.
I then read them a couple of stories and a poem. They seemed not to get to bored, but I did hear the word boring come up a time or two. They all seemed to like the poem, for some reason I knew that they would. It was one Leigh Anne used to ask me to read to her every night. The name of it is “There was a Little Girl”. Let me share it with you.
There was a little girl
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.
One day she went upstairs,
When her parents, unawares,
In the kitchen were occupied with meals,
And she stood upon her head
In her little trundle-bed,
And then began hooraying with her heals.
Her mother heard the noise,
And she thought it was the boys
A-playing at a combat in the attic;
But when she climbed the stair,
And found Jemima there,
She took and she did spank her most emphatic.
The poem is sometimes attributed to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It brought the house down, and the kids seemed to think it was awfully funny. They even listened well enough to ask what emphatic meant. Well… I hope I told them right.
I enjoyed the time, and if they remember anything of me maybe it will encourage them to read.
