If my parents can be believed (though I’m sure most parents exaggerate), I have been a reader for most of my life. I can’t remember how I learned to read, only that I loved reading so much that I wanted to become a teacher to help others learn to love books. 

As an educator, I thought that the problem was exposure – kids who don’t read don’t do it because because they just aren’t given enough opportunity to find books they like. So my mission was to make reading fun. I brought reluctant readers to the library, read poems and told stories in class, got my school to use graphic novels in the curriculum, and created reading journals with hundreds of fun activities.

When I became a mum a second time in 2023, I took a break. Our second child, M, had been born with severe-profound hearing loss and my family needed me. 

Suddenly, I wasn’t a teacher on a mission anymore. I was just a mum. 

I wrestled with questions like: “Can my child learn to read if he can’t hear words very well?” and “Will my child hate reading, if he finds it difficult?” 

I took sign language classes, brought my child to therapy, and read up on early literacy every moment I got. And we read, read and read together. 

Our little boy is now 2, and he loves his family, his lovey (Bobo), and books. Just like his older sister.

Our journey together has taught me that a love of reading is not a matter of what we as parents do, but how we relate.

In the same way that M’s hearing loss is just another part of what makes him special and loved, so are books just another part of our family life together. Both my kids know that reading isn’t something for them to achieve, but something fun that we do together.