I Hate Reading

In summary, I felt as if I changed after the fourth grade. Like video games, I could be in a fantasy and pretend I was actually in the hero’s position. I could be a part of a story. This contest of literacy competition started a passion of reading books for me. Now that I’m older if I ever want to escape the real world after having a long hard stressful day all I have to do is crack open a book a let the adventure begin. Even though my teacher never followed through on her promise of a prize I was rewarded with something so much more Important, a burning passion for

I used to hate reading. Despised it really, the reason is I could never get into a story. Ten year old Megan decided if the story did not have these three points, I would have nothing to do with that. That all change once I hit grade nine and gradually my appreciation for books started to grow. Then hit the summer of 2013, I had three series lined up to occupy myself for the next two months. Looking at the top of the first book, like most books, had a review form New York Times, or another author saying how well the book it. “Wow would it not be cool to see my name on top of someone else books?” I thought to myself, and then it hit me, why not? Thus the birth of my book review blog: Teenage Reads. Then on every Tuesday since July 9, 2013, I

I never understood the point of reading. My parents first introduced my siblings and I to its world at the early age of two. We were familiarized with letters, taught to link sound the visual and formed words with a stuttering start. We became accustomed to the quiet of Tuesday nights when my father would sit huddled on the sofa – my mother curled up in bed – his long nose buried in a novel, a black curtain cascading from her head to the pages, morphing into one with their respective books. As the night drew close the browns of their eyes would light up, while my mother’s red lips would quiver with excitement and my father would flash a lopsided smile. “Reading is an adventure,” they’d

Honestly when I started reading the book I was kind of bored with it maybe it’s because I hate reading but I’m trying to break out of that stage so as I continued to read it got very interesting especially in Early Awareness Chapter it started to make me think about all the things I was taught in life and how I never asked question I think I was too young to realize.

The thin rustic pages scrape past my loose fingers as I sit engaged. My heart pounds harder and faster with every word my eyes pass over. My ears hear nothing, even within booming noise. My complete focus is on the book that lays in my hand with a laminated cover, and I have no choice but to submit to the content. My breath tastes of spearmint and the aroma of fresh paper floats past my nose. I couldn’t resist but delve into the worlds and mysteries that books hold. Once opened, everything around me becomes a distant blur. I am hooked. Books have always created an escape for creativity and fancies to run free. Books are used as a medium for reason. Books are formative to the development of human beings. In my instance, books changed my life.

Damp orange leaves stuck to my shoes as I trudged my way toward the back entrance of the school. A chilly wind whooshed past me, spraying my face with vapor. It felt good, almost numbing. Shoving my hands into my jean pockets, I then began to think of the red book. A tingle of warmth spread throughout my body as I recalled the way my fingers had glided over the embossed gold design on the cover. The gold always seemed to glitter when it touched the light; it was worthy of admiration, praise. As if suddenly slapped across the face, I came to my senses. Daydreaming about a book, especially one that was that was supposedly inherently evil, was not normal behavior. That was such a random thought, think about something else Jared, I scolded myself.

I viewed reading as a chore, was often unenthused, and would mostly annotate on the overarching themes without gathering any meaning from them. Books were merely a series of words printed on paper. This school year, however, I began to understand the allure reading has to offer. I have grown to appreciate reading and the insights a book can offer. When reading our numerous texts, I was able to live vicariously through the characters of the books and relate aspects of their lives to my own. Because all of the books from English I pertain to coming of age, I was able to not only learn about maturation as a process, but understand how it pertains to my own life. Through protagonists such as Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye or Esperanza from The House on Mango Street, I learned about my “misguided desire to preserve childhood innocence” and to empower feminism similar to Holden and Esperanza respectively (Heart of Gold, Raghuram). Gradually, I have finally developed the ability to relate to novels and its characters amidst writing my own story.Whether it be thematic elements or the details of a case I am working on, I have become more observant to even the most trivial details. Now when I read, I not only look at the themes, motifs, and symbols, but also repeated phrases or situations that parallel each others as well as the symbolic meaning behind some ambiguous phrases or scenes. Reading now, in contrast to last summer, is a

Reading is an intellectual feat of monstrous proportions. It changes the brain, and thus "[it is a] powerful mirror of... how the brain learns anything new." (4) To better comprehend its magnitude, Wolf divides her work into three topics: the history of reading, how a modern child learns to read, and the case when a child struggles to learn to read. These three sections, when taken together, provide a holistic and nuanced view of the act of reading, making the reader appreciate the things once taken for granted. Out of the three sections, it is the beginning section, which

8:45 a.m. on a Tuesday; it is time to go to my English class. Excited and curious on what my classmates and I will read. Spending hours reading passages, short stories, fiction and learning how to analyze them developed my passion for reading. I’ve lived many lives and I’ve traveled to many parts of the world because I spend my free time reading novels. The way I see it, there’s a world in every book. Books aren’t just made up of sentences and paragraphs. Books are filled with lessons and meaning.

As a child there is one specific book I remember the most. Harry Potter, this book became a staple in my bedtime ritual. Before bed, and before I could read, my mother would deliver the story of Harry Potter to me as I drift between consciousness and sleep. Listening to my mom read gave me an urge to learn. It is hard to remember when I began reading, but what I do recall I can picture it perfectly. My first book’s, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Cat and Dog are still some of my favorite books. Some may wonder why these books are my favorites, and my only explanation is that they are my trophies. These trophies symbolize milestones in my life. Every milestone I pass I remember. Just thinking about not being able to read makes me feel uncomfortable. For anyone who is illiterate, must feel helpless in most environments. Especially in places that are unknown to them. I experience this while traveling. During the

The first moment I had learned our prospective reading assignments, I felt a shadow of doubt intruding on that little cloud of confidence somewhere in my mind. Every year of my high school career, an English teacher has so wholeheartedly and enthusiastically presented a novel to the class that, to anyone who had the privilege of receiving the brunt of their excitement, that novel in particular had to be the most cathartic, astounding, metamorphic novel we could ever hope to lay eyes on. I expected each page to grace my mind with profound knowledge, enlighten with scholarly insight, entertain with the skill of a master artist and performer; and yet, each time my hopes shattered like the windows of a building in an earthquake. The entire foundation, which had been so carefully and devotedly constructed, crumbled within minutes of opening the book.

Perusing a book resemble undertaking an investigation: we search over passages and pages, connecting bits of plot and character together to manufacture a rational, convincing photo of a total world. When we come to the end of a book and snap shutter the cover, we often feel satisfied that our investigation is over. Our questions have been answered, and the “case” is closed. But the book that truly effects us—whether thrillers, mysteries, or stories of unrequited love--often don’t give us a complete sense of closure. They raise questions that linger long after the last page.

Taryn arrives at tutoring daily with a cheerful smile and an enthusiastic attitude towards learning. This term, she focused diligently on increasing her reading fluency and furthering her writing skills. To improve her reading fluency and decoding ability, Taryn is learning to decode advanced sounds within multi-syllable words (BUFFS). It is a pleasure to note that decoding these once challenging sounds is becoming much easier for Taryn. As a result, her reading is becoming more fluent. Taryn greatly enjoys reading, and she is currently reading the novel, Crenshaw in tutoring. It is wonderful to report that Taryn’s reading comprehension is slightly above grade level—well done, Taryn! Big thanks are sent out to her parents for encouraging

The guided reading level of our focus book, Arthur Lost and Found by Marc Brown was level K. Ryan was able to read 90% of the words correctly, which determines that this book is at his highest instructional reading level. Ryan’s errors were all visual miscues. These miscues displayed a pattern in Ryan missing the medial phonemes in words, but he uses phonics in order to successfully read the initial and final phonemes. Throughout his reading, Ryan made up words that were not real words in the English language, such as “growled” as “growereld,” “habits” as “hubits,” and “paid” as “palled.” This determines that Ryan is not reading for meaning, as he makes up words as he reads, rather than using context in order to make meaning of the words.

At first I was stubborn, the only book I would grab was the Japanese book. I am sure everyone in the house wanted nothing more than for me to pick up any other book to read. Finally, I did. I began to make use of the stacks of books that were nearly as tall as the Eiffel tower. Reading as many animated children’s books in a day that a girl possibly could, it was not long before I had forgotten about the book that sparked it all. The foreign book was most likely buried under piles of others or packed away somewhere out of the