On my reading habits

Quite a long time ago I took to reading as a natural step towards maturity. I admit that in the very beginning it was under pressure from my teachers and my family that I started to read, but after a few years, Stevenson's Treasure Island and Salgari's Tigers of Mompracem turned me into a voracious reader.
That is why I understand so well the pictures of the old lady and the young girl or the kids in class, that is, what seems to be guided reading for learning and autonomous one just for personal enrichment and pleasure. It is when kids and teens realise that reading is as fulfilling as, say, playing computer games that balance is achieved.
As regards reading in English or French, the foreign languages I can read reasonably efficiently, it is funny to remember the beginnings, when extensive reading activities were almost an ordeal for me. I can still see my-17-year-old-self reading the script for Close Encounters of the Third Kind stuck to my Collins and silently complaining and wondering why I had to undergo such a terrible experience. And that makes me reflect on my role as a teacher today.