Laurie Linn Lindstrom is President of Communique.
On June 4th, 1998 at 1:50 in the afternoon on a sunny beautiful day at the Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, New York, Gillian Lee Lindstrom was born to the proud parents of Eric & Laurie Lindstrom. It was such an exciting time. Our first child, our precious little girl, whom we had named but had not yet, met until that day. The excitement and emotional rush was also at the same time overwhelming with the amount of new information we needed to learn to raise a resilient and happy child.
Upon our departure from Cayuga Medical Center we were given a free gift: a book. "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle came as a gift from the Family Reading Partnership with funding support from the Tompkins Trust Company. Little did we know on that day, how much reading together would be a part of Gillian's life, and how much she would enjoy that very same book to this day.
My mother died of cancer at age 54 and always told me that she wished she had read to me and my brother and sister more. If she could change one thing about her parenting, she said it would have been to read to my siblings and me more often. Her voice rang true in my head over and over and I knew that from the moment she was born, reading would be a big part of Gillian's life. Since day one, Gillian has been read to. Eric and I own an advertising agency so content and illustrations are very near and dear to us, and a big part of our everyday lives. We would spend time picking out specific authors that we felt would help mold and cement impressions in Gillian's life that were very important to us.
I remember after reading 3-4 books to Gillian for nearly a year at bed time, she started memorizing the words. One day when we flipped the colorful pages, she pointed to the photo of the ball and said "ball", then pointed to the string and said "string", she pointed to many objects in that little book and suddenly knew all the words. This was an amazing moment for mom and dad and one that has been repeated countless times since.
As Gillian turned 4 this month she is still surrounded by books. She is fortunate enough to attend Little Feet Montessori School where reading is a very important part of their day and at bed time her most special moment of the day is picking out 3 books for mommy or daddy to read to her. Then she has quiet time before bed, where she is encouraged to read books for 15 minutes or so before she nods off to sleep.
We will sit downstairs listening to her "read" the words aloud to all of her stuffed animals. She turns the book toward them and reads the words as if each animal were being taught to read. It is so adorable how enthusiastic and animated she is while "reading" to her stuffed friends.
Has reading made a positive impact on our family? I cannot imagine a world without words and pictures, a world without the use of our imagination, a world that creates wonder, and a world that connects families, that is what reading has done for our family and will continue to do for our little Gillian.
Family Reading Partnership
Ithaca, New York
Phone: 607-277-8602
Email: office@familyreading.org
