I learned how to read first before I started to write. When I was six, my best friends grandmother came to our school and read to us every Friday. She introduced me to the world of Narnia.
I was eight years old when my brother started to read Junie B. Jones to me every night, he was my reading buddy in school as well when the older kids came to visit us for community service. My favorite books as a young child were Big Friendly Giant, Madeline, and of course Junie B. Jones. 
When I was ten I started to read on my own. I started to read creepy crawlies and I remember thinking at how I loved the suspense and how the stories captured you.
And when I turned thirteen, my father helped me leap ahead in reading when he bought me my first Vampire Chronicle by Anne Rice. Vampire Lestat. From then on I grew up reading all of Anne Rices books, Lestat, Louis, Marius, Armand, Memnoch the Devil etc. became my childhood friends. They were my hero's that questioned life as I did and sought out truth in darkness. They pulled me through my religious inquiries and made me understand life in a different light. Anne Rice showed me how to write poetry and thus I started to write poetry. 
And then my Dad did something else, he brought me into the world of R. A. Salvatore and I met Drizzt Do Urden. He was my favorite action hero. I comprehended the story so well that I was showing my dad the moves R A. Salvatore described in the book. That author showed me how to write action scenes. 
And thus when I went into high school, I loved writing about anything and everything  and by the time I graduated I became extremely passionate about writing. 
Writing is how I communicate. I have yet to ever reach the level that my favorite authors are at.