NEA Today asked educators who first inspired their love of reading. Here are some responses, or check out the whole list on NEA Today Facebook. Thanks to a lot of teachers and librarians as well as dedicated parents (Hi, Mom and Dad!) we have a lot of well-read educators!
"My mom, Irene Heeter Mong, who actually was a teacher, made reading magical. She read aloud to my brother and me, and her fourth graders, every day. Thanks, Mom!" – Mary Anne Mong
"Peter Gamble at Lowell High School. He’s passed, but I still remember him igniting my love of lit in all forms." – Diana Pineda
"My fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Ohe. She read to us and encouraged us. I now teach fourth grade and do many of the same read-alouds she did." – Natalie Hamrum
"Mrs. Kelley Norman at Baker County High School. I didn’t fall in love with reading until I was in my junior year. I missed out on so many great adolescent reads! Luckily, I became a middle grade ELA teacher and read them with my classes!" – Angela Suppa Callahan
"Mrs. Dorrie, my kindergarten teacher who taught me how to put the sounds of letters together to read the word. I remember the first time it made sense and began reading everything I could find." – Joyce Maloley
"Mrs. Toelander, my third grade teacher in Las Vegas, in the early ‘80s. She would read the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ books to us." – Nicole Atkinson
"Sherry Crane Lindsay Wold reignited my love of reading when I was a junior in high school. I hadn’t picked up a book in years that wasn’t assigned reading. But when she challenged us to read books from a recommended reading list, I was determined to read as many as I could!" – Katie Yale Whitehurst
"My mom; the library was a sacred place, and my fifth- grade teacher Mrs. Nightingale. I can still hear her voice reading aloud in my mind” – Jennifer S. Johnson
"My mom, who was a teacher for 40 years!” – Valerie Ann Kennedy
My second-grade teacher put ABC cards up on the board and she said if you learn the letter sounds you can read! I only had her for half a year, but I learned how to read and became a book worm – and a reading specialist when I got older!” – Moe Song
"The librarian in the children’s section of my public library. She let me check stacks of books every week. When I returned them, she asked me questions." – Susan Abrahamson
"Funnily enough, Sting! Who was a former teacher. The Police had a song, “Tea in the Sahara,” which I found out was a chapter from Paul Bowles’ “The Sheltering Sky.” I read that book and I never looked back. Still one of my favorite books! – Andrew Rea
