Jeremy’s 11 year old child could read fluently at three and a half years of age and read at a Grade 8 level in Grade 3. Although his youngest child is a little slower, he could read well by five years of age. Jeremy attributes this to reading to his children every night since they were 18 months old. He and his wife made an effort to teach them to read early; his wife started emphasizing this when the children were around two and a half years old.

Jeremy models writing behavior for his children. He writes research and design papers and appraisal papers on the computer and is published in technical magazines. The family has more than 900 books at home; there are seven to eight books beside Jeremy’s bed. There are also books in the living room including novels and technical papers. Jeremy’s wife reads the newspaper every day; the New York Times, Globe and Mail and the Edmonton Journal are delivered daily. His wife also reads Vogue, women’s fashion magazines and occasionally reads novels.

The family watches movies together on the weekend. Jeremy and his wife sang and rhymed with their children more when the children were younger. Jeremy wrote a number of children’s stories for his children when they were young. He also works as a part-time illustrator and animator and he models a lot of art and design; his children have also learned some art and design.

Jeremy’s children are very computer-literate and know Photoshop and Flash. His 11 year old son is “obsessed with the computer”—he has a computer in his room and knows HTML very well. He also plays recreational games on the internet for half an hour a day. The children watch television—mostly movies—for a few hours a week. His older son has a Game Cube and a Playstation but he refuses to play with them or watch television.

Both children are honor students with high vocabulary levels. Jeremy helps them with studying and his wife does one to one and a half hours of extra homework with them a night. His 11 year old son was the only child in the 101 Book Club to complete reading 101 books in a year. He has 200 to 300 books at home. Jeremy used to read to his 11 year old son every night but stopped a few years ago; now he reads to himself and listens to his father reading to his younger sibling and cousins. Although his son has a library card, they do not visit the public library often. They go to Chapters frequently. His son has a lot of audio books and goes to the school library once every two weeks because it is required.

The family goes to cultural centres once every two months. Although Jeremy has no formal writing training, he has been published and said he “can’t figure out” why he was able to publish articles and others with more training and experience are not.

He reads constantly. Both his siblings are very literate and he believes “it’s a genetic trait”; his sister has a degree in English and his brother is a pharmacist.