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Bilingual Literacy Narrative

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Were they laughing at me? I did not understand what they were saying. I was not always bilingual. My roots and upbringing were implanted by Ukrainian principals. When my parents came from Ukraine, they did not know the English language; therefore, I was brought up only speaking and understanding Ukrainian. This caused a barrier in the way I interacted with kids my age. I was shy and timid, never leaving my parents side. Upon entering school, I had very limited knowledge of English. Making friends was hard because my accent was heavy and my school lunch smelled funny. I was mortified to go to school everyday. My papers always came back with a bit more red errors and I never did well on spelling quizzes. I lacked the ability to read books as efficiently as the kids in my class. Reading gave me the most trouble: silent vowels did not reach a recognition point, basic comprehension skills were lacking, and my words per minute was always below mediocre. Eventually, I was enrolled in an English Language Development (ELD) program for lagging behind in class. I loathed being the only kid in the class that had to leave. I was taken …show more content…

Holm. It was a book far beyond my reading level, but the cover was pretty--which justified my reading it. It was the biggest book I had ever picked up. Although I struggled to finish the novel, it became the source of my realization. I connected with Penny--the main character--in a way that was foreign to me. Penny and I were both from culturally diverse backgrounds, she struggled with acceptance in the same way that I was coming to terms with. This newfound love for reading gave me a new insight. I realized that being ashamed of who I was and how I spoke limited my potential. From that moment, I decided to actively engage in my education. No longer would I be the girl that would politely decline to read out loud. No longer would I be the girl who was laughed

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