- She asks for books - and only books - for her birthday and holidays.
- She reads while walking.
- She not only reads while walking, she reads in the elevator.
- When I drop her off at the school playground, she leans against the fence and reads instead of playing.
- She asks to read books that she's only heard about in other books (which sometimes, frustratingly, are spoilers).
- Her frames of reference are primarily literary.
- She asks to stay up later "just to finish this chapter." Twenty minutes later, you ask if she's finished the chapter and she says, "Oops, I finished it a while ago but I kept reading because it is just SO GOOD."
- She asks you to keep reading to her because she is "hanging off a cliff."
- She packs 6 books in her suitcase when she is going away for only 2 nights.
- She comes over to listen when I read to her younger sister, whether we are reading picture books or chapter books, even (especially?) when it's a book she's read before.
- She scoffs when she hears that, in order to be inducted into her school's Reading Hall of Fame, she (only) has to read 8 chapter books over the summer. "I could read that in two days," she says, matter-of-factly, "probably one if I skipped meals." (She reminds me of myself and my sister who would scoff every year when our elementary principal said that we should read "a" book over the summer. "A" book?!? Just one?!? Aim a little lower, why don't you?)
- Three of her birthday gifts were gift cards to bookstores.
- When she had to choose a person in the community to write about, she chose a librarian. And then she dedicated her book "to all librarians."
- When she had to draw a building in New York, she drew the "wide library."
- She chooses audio books over music in the car. [Added 8/4/13]
How do you know you're raising a reader?
