Who's gonna start? You?
–Our parents spent a lot of time reading to us.
–Definitely, till we were about ten years old.
Every night they'd take turns reading to us, before we'd go to bed. When we were about ten years old we had to read for ourselves.
We really wanted them to continue reading to us. But no, we were big enough to read ourselves now.
–Sometimes they would read to us right up to the moment it would get exciting, and then said I had to read the rest for myself.
We were quite visually oriented, but reading was important for stimulating our Dutch language skills.
Our parents thought that was simply very important.
My Dutch is also slightly better than my sister's. Thanks in part to my sister.
Because I learned from her, of course. But also because my parents were already capable of signing when I was born...
...and it took them about seven months to start signing with her.
You were really kind of my teacher, which allowed to learn quicker.
Of course it also has to do with interests, because I know some other deaf children...
...who don't have a deaf family but still have an excellent command of Dutch because they love reading.
Parents have to make reading as fun as possible. Lots and lots of reading to them and of course using a deaf babysitter.
The child really needs to be fascinated by the story and then they will want to start reading on their own, too.
–I see that in the children I read to at work. They love this.
I want to pass along that feeling that I got back then.
–Tell us about your internship at Signis?
–Yeah, that was my internship with the sixth grade at Signis. I read "Kruistocht in spijkerbroek" to them.
That's quite a thick book. But when I run into those kids from back then, they're still talking about that.