| By :
Betty Locke
I would like to ask senior citizens how they remember their early reading days. I' ll bet many of them would associate reading, not with Dick and Jane but with the colored comics that arrived in the early morning Sunday newspaper. Less sophisticated presses back then would often produce colors not in sync with the drawing lines so that an eye or a lip of a character would hover on the wrong side of the skull. This abnormality however, would in no way detract from the fascination. Small hands would grab for the comic pages and then young brains would devour the buffoonery of the Katzenjammer Kids the way some modern young people dote on the "soaps." Many a child learned to read by studying the 'funnies'. Adults would sometime refer to the comics as 'penny dreadfuls' but the children, not knowing any better, just loved them. You might call those funny papers the Sesame Street of the dirty thirties. Mickey Mouse may be almost a century in age but he and Minnie are as popular as ever. They out fame many a talented now forgotten movie star, languishing in the dusty pages of celluloid history, But Popeye, L'il Abner and Orphan Annie live on forever. The antics of these yesteryear characters of the 'funnies' were avidly devoured on the weekends by children everywhere while parents thankfully applauded the opportunity for an extended Sunday morning sleep in. Blondie and Dagwood are still around, young looking as ever, although they have grown up children. They haven't changed much in three quarters of a century. Dagwood still works for Mr. Dithers and he still periodically knocks down the mailman and makes ridiculous cholesterol laden sandwiches. The age of Daisy, in dog years must now be a gazillion. The color comics gradually improved in quality and did brighten some of the last century's dreary times, triggering laughter against a background of economic depression and war. Isn't it astonishing that people of all ages still flock in droves, sometimes traveling great distances to Disney World?. Donald and Daisy Duck are, quack quack, as popular as ever. Well Seniors, how many of us remember Mammy and Pappy Yokum, Daisy Mae and Moonbeam McSwine? Probably most of us. The modern trend is to teach reading almost from the day kids are born but I really think that we should wait a week or two. Give them a chance to master sucking and burping. However, reading can be introduced to the very young so that some have good basic reading skills by the time they start school. Active young brains tend to memorize stories word for word and if an adult is pointing to the words as he or she reads, children often become skilled at recognizing the shape of words and phrases. Grandparents (or parents) reading to little ones perform a valuable service thus ensuring a flying start to their educations.
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