Hi everyone! My name is Bailey Dill and I am a third year Child and Family Development student at San Diego State University. I am so excited to be a part of the Words Alive Family Literacy program because it will provide me with more experience on how to make reading more engaging and fun for others.
I want to pursue a career in becoming a teacher, so this opportunity to learn about making books more captivating is a perfect skill to have and then apply down the road. Words Alive was really intriguing for me to become a part of because I also want to be able to empower other families in becoming reading advocates as well! I think reading is so important for so many different reasons, such as inspiring imagination and creativity.
I personally have been reading since before I even knew how to read words. When I was younger, I loved picture books and even though I couldn’t understand the story itself I would make up stories using my imagination and I would entertain myself by just staring at the pictures.
The first books I actually remember reading are the Junie B. Jones books by Barbara Parks and Denise Brunkus. I owned every book in this series and I read each one multiple times. These books were so fun for me because they are chapter books, so I could split up the time I spent reading them, and they also had illustrations which helped with my visualizations.
Reading has always been something that I love, and before all the electronic devices became popular, that’s how I would entertain myself. I also especially love books that connect to a movie or series, because then I can compare my imagination to what someone else imagined. One summer, I read the entire Twilight series, and then I watched all the movies right after. Reading the books beforehand made the movies so much more fun to watch because I had that opportunity to compare what I had pictured in my head to what the movies actually looked like.
Overall, I think reading is such a wonderful skill to have, and it is such a fun way to improve other skills as well. I am so excited for this semester, and I am so happy to be able to share my love for reading with all of you through my position here at Words Alive!