life long love of reading, a fight or failure?

The Wolf article reads in jist that a child who was raised with a strong foundation of books, a love for books, from a young age, will grow to be a better reader or learner than one who does not have the background with books in their development.  Wolf sites many studies which portray this to be the truth.  However, it was frustrating to read, because I tried to figure where I fit into this model.

I had all the advantages growing up, middle class suburbia in the north shore, two parent home, dad worked full time, mom part time at home to be with us.  My brother and I had all the books we could ever read.  I will speak strictly about me now.  I had parents that read to me, did all sorts of learning games with me, took me to libraries, reading was a big part of our lives.

So what happened to me.

My love for reading collapsed when I was in grade school, and it got worse from there.  There was so much work, and no time to finish it.  There was no time to play, no time to read, it was just homework.  Everything I read was something I HAD to read.  There was no time for something I wanted to read.  My only outlet was some tv and sleep.  I had some time to play with friends, but with all the stress of all that homework, yes even grade school was stressful, I didn't want to get near a book.  Reading was a chore, one I did not like. 

I fell behind in school because there was more reading, and I didn't like it, then I could never finish timed tests.  Seeing the mean jerks at school finish timed tests that I couldn't made me hate reading even more.

All I heard from teachers was, "you're lazy, you're stupid, you're not trying."  You know where this is going.  That's right.  Learning Disability!!!  It was discovered in my third year of college.

All those years of dicouragement have made me a reluctant reader.  My disability makes me read about 1/3 the speed of the average person.  There is still little time for reading pleasure.

These studies don't cover people like me.  They cover the typical average child.  There was nothing in these readings about children with undiscovered learning disabilities and the teachers that discouraged them.

My parents did what they could. 

I love to read, but it is still frustrating because it takes so long.

Love of reading starts from the beginning and needs to be supported throughout every angle of a child's life.  I didn't have that benefit.

Make sure others don't make the same mistake.

p.s. I would like to see some studies of children/adults in my situation.