Seven-year-old girl who has read over 1,000 books
Daliyah, 4, has read more than 1,000 books since starting to read on her own at age 2.
Libraries are Daliyah’s favourite place to be in the world. The child loves books and, most especially, reading them.
It was a love affair born, according to her mother, soon after Daliyah parted the womb and Haleema Arana began reading to her because that’s what you did in the Aranas’ Gainesville home. Read. At least 15 minutes a day. Daliyah’s siblings, 12-year-old Diego and 10-year-old Dalilah, are both avid readers.
We moms cheer when our children utter their first words, take their first steps. We go slap crazy when they score a touchdown or home run. I flipped the way I imagine Haleema did when I realised my daughters could read.
Even at age 4, Daliyah understood how books opened not just your heart but this great big world we live in.
We can thank her parents Haleema and Miguel Arana for that. Daliyah was just 18 months old when her mother realized she could actually read. Ann’s Big Muffin.” “Fat Cat.” “Daddy and Me.” You name it. Daliyah could read it.
When she first took a book from her mother’s hands and proclaimed she could read it on her own, Haleema Arana said, “I thought she’d memorized the words.”
Haleema decided to download a sight word app on her iPad and discovered her little girl actually knew the words. A lot of words.
“I got so excited,” Arana said. “The more words she learned, the more she wanted to learn. She went from two- and three-letter words to four and five letters and on and on it went.”
Until finally, in June 2016, little Daliyah had read 1,000 books.That wasn’t enough, though, for Daliyah. She was visiting the library near her home in Gainesville one day when she sashayed up to the librarian.
“Excuse me, ma’am, can I be a librarian for a day?” Daliyah asked.
When she finally did a couple of weeks later, Daliyah checked out books. She put books on the shelves. She managed the front counter. It was very exciting because the library had a lot of children that day.
