Presumption : people who love words also like to read.
What got you started reading?
My Mother taught me to read when I was about age five and I was off and running.
My Dad, a newspaperman, subscribed (among many others) to The Saturday Evening Post - the Hornblower stories, LIFE - all those great pictures especially of the troops in WWII (no TV then!) Liberty- wonderful short stories, I devoured them every month. Then there were all the "funnies" in the six newspapers delivered every day. Brenda Star, Tarzan of the Jungle ... and comic books : "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle," was a favorite.
OK, what got you started?

I think I started reading when I saw the chart on the crib of the kid next to me at the birthing ward of the hospital.

Near as I can remember, anyway. I can't ever remember not reading. I know my parents read to us because there were family stories about how my sister would complain when they turned the page at the wrong place in the reading.

My older brother had caught scarlet fever in kindergarten. My mother had been a school teacher, so a blackboard in the kitchen turned it into a kindergarten.By age 5 I was writing letters to my grandmother, and reading in bed with the covers hiding the light so my mother wouldn't take the book away.

i was reading words long before i could read-- it was at some point age 6 or so all the words came together as sentences and paragraphs, and stories.. and then i was off.. the stupid primers "see dick. see jane. see dick run. see jane run" where quicky abandon for real books.

very early on, i learned store's names and types.. and back in the 50's, there were such a variety.. the one i remember that puzzled me, was the notions store-- since it obviously didn't sell ideas! one of my favorite words as a child was loitering-- which was forbidden on all of the stoops in the neighborhood! and subway rides expanded my vocabulary. expectorating was prohibitted!

i don't remember my parents ever reading to me, (or to my siblings) but my mother read all the time, and we went to the library every week. as soon as you could sign your name, you could get a library card-- and six books a week for your pleasure! age 10 or so, i became methodical, and started reading "young adults fiction" selection starting with A.

we subscribed to Life.. but not to many other magazines.. but there were always newspapers in the house. the Daily news had serial novels up until the 70's (it may have them still, my taste in newspapers changed) so i started reading serial novels quite early-- and then age 12 discovered dickens.. Oh joy-- i also remember at that age reading The Good Earth and being a bit sly about it, convinced my parents (mother) would put a stop to it. i remember thinking it was such a racy book.. all about concubines, and other very adult stuff. (there actually was a point in my life when i was pure and innocent.. a long time ago i'll admit, ) six years later, my reading included O, much less innocent stuff....

I also can't remember not being able to read. When I was very small, somewhere around 3, my father used to read to us kids while sitting at the kitchen table. I always sat across from him, and one day I realized that I knew the next word he would speak. Unfortunately, I was reading upside down, something that I continued to do until the nuns beat my little knuckles when I started first grade (around age 4).

There are only two other activites in life that give me more pleasure. Writing is one of them. As to the other, the nuns also taught sex education! So you could say I subscribe to the three Rs, reading, writing, and rhythmic tricks. Well, perhaps you couldn't say it, but I could.

perhaps you couldn't say it, but I could.

Not so much couldn't as wouldn't, TdE.

Regarding the three Rs, I always thought they left out the most important one, the fourth R, spelling.

No, my Sweet Max, there's no r in spelling.

I think I was born with 29 overdue books from the library. I would always be found curled up in a chair reading, unless I was out running around in the woodsHi, K!. I still do both with a reasonable rate of frequency.

My earliest memory is me sitting in my crib looking at one of those baby books. My mom says that I would fall asleep when I was reading, and the book would sit on my face.

My earliest memory would be Uncle Wiggly... but soon after that I can remember reading the bible... and understanding that they were quite a different culture and 'spoke' using words that required a bit of *translation.

the first word i taught my daughter to read where sale and clearance and in the days before the fair credit act of 1965,(US) (pathetic isn't it that i know that?) when store could and did give discounts for cash, Macy's had a brass plaque at the front door, noting it gave 3% discount for cash. I remember having it pointed out to me, and read to me, and being made to read it back. it is the only thing i remember being taught to read.

needless to say, when i got around to doing cost accounting in college, i aced it. cost accounting was mother's milk to me!

The stores in NY where all5¢ & 10¢ storesthe words where never writen out.. so i think how that was spoken was a local idiom, since i am pretty sure they were Five and Ten cents stores in NY.-- but mostly they were Woolworth's or Kress's or Grant's all of which where a step up from Cheap Charlie's, and John's Bargain Stores, but where a step below real department stores, like Alexander's-- which was the lowest quality department store. All of these stores have gone out of business.. in the suburbs, ex urbs, there are Wal-marts and K marts. but there are No (not a one!) Wal marts in NYC, only 5 Sears (and all of them are pretty small, and none in manhattan,) and about the same number of K-marts. (2 in manhattan). there used to be a Woolworths every 10 blocks or so.. drug stores have more or less taken over selling all the sundry items you used to be able to buy there-- but not quite.

There were some notable exceptions to the fair credit act.. i think gas stations where excluded for some reason.. i can't think of the other exceptions, but they did exist.