Informal Language Arts Lessons

English has always been one of my favorite subjects because it allows me to use imagination and creativity while always learning something new. I constantly read and even participated in a small book club. I also began writing short stories in a journal and sharing them with others. I love being able to write whatever I may think of and turning it into something more. The passion I have for English has stuck with me for years and I have been trying to share it with others.

I have acquired many literacy opportunities throughout my literacy life my parents, grandparents, and teachers ,I hold them very close to my heart because if it wasn’t for them pushing and encouraging me to read and write I wouldn’t be the literate person I am today. I bear a huge family so there are always many voices going through my head so it wasn’t long until I started speaking, as well as comprehending what all these strange words meant recognizing the words was very difficult before I started practicing them. My parents always encouraged me to read and write in a way no child can resist with toys and candy who could say no to that. Every chance they got to help me read they would read with me. I wasn’t forced to read on my own because I didn’t know how.

Last week we wrote a blog and one of the questions was “How did you learn to read and write?”  I found this question interesting because I never had really thought about the moment when I actually learned how to read and write. My mom was the first person to expose me to reading and writing. A popular tactic she did to make sure I was staying engaged was to read aloud stories and make me follow along with her. My mom would read me many different stories like Tarzan, Bambi, Aladdin, Peter Pan, Lion King, The Jungle Book, and Hercules. whatever I wanted to listen and follow along with, she would read with me. This really helped with my want to read. The books contained a lot of adventure, which made it easy as a kid to follow along with. I became to gain an imagination and then all of a sudden reading was easier.

During adolescence, I began reading and writing through a fundamental learning program called, "Hooked on Phonics." This program consisted of long hours spent reading short novels and writing

During adolescence, I began reading and writing through a fundamental learning program called, "Hooked on Phonics." This program consisted of long hours spent reading short novels and writing

Like many children, I learned to read and write around the age of five at both home and school. I learned to read by reading Dick and Jane. The writing was simple, but I loved the stories. That was always my favorite part

In elementary school, I loved to read. Writing was not a big deal either due to the fact that we did not have to write four page essays. It was in first grade when I started to like reading. Reading has just been freshly introduced, considering we had only completed one year of school. My teacher always read to us and I wanted to read those books as well. Throughout elementary school I started to read Junie B. Jones books, which were my favorite. All of the books were about a first grade girl and her different adventures. I had always enjoyed reading those books. Each book had a different topic which I would always relate to in some way. Although I liked to read, I did struggle with reading comprehension which made me dislike writing as well. I hated having to read and then go and write about it. To this day, I still do not like reading comprehension, but my feelings toward reading and writing have changed.

My literacy journey had begun earlier than most kids, according to my mother. I started reading in kindergarten, with help with the BOB books and the PBS show Between the Lions. I don’t know when I had started writing exactly, but I remember clearly writing short stories about my cat Stormy in 3rd grade. At that time we had to write weekly short stories, and I only ever wrote about my cat. In 4th grade, I had started exploring writing more; I would write plays for me and my friends to practice during recess. Most of them, I’m happy to say, were actually educational, so my teacher had even let my friends and I perform one about early-American settlers in front of our whole class.

As I reflect on my childhood, the first memory of literacy I recall is when I was in kindergarten. I was approaching the end of the school year when my mother revealed to me my teacher was considering keeping me in kindergarten for another year. I was extremely upset and felt as if I had failed my first year of school. I felt that I was fresh out of the gate and already defective. My perception as a child was that the adults were already giving up on me. The teacher stated if I could learn the alphabet by the end of the school year I could continue ahead to the 1st grade. The conclusion of Kindergarten was vastly approaching. My mother constructed flash cards to help with my letter recognition. In doing so, she realized I could not see the letters. My mother promptly made an appointment for me to visit an Optometrist to evaluate me. Before I knew it, I was fitted with a big plastic pair of glasses. My world became much clearer after that. My mother was upset that my teacher did not recognize the problem, and that I never spoke up. Fortunately, I passed kindergarten with a lot of hard work from my parents, teacher, and I.

When and where my practices in literacy began was slightly difficult to pinpoint, though I guess I could say it began with my favorite television show as a kid, Between the Lions. It was a children's show that promoted reading, spelling, and writing and aired on the PBS kids network. On the show, there were numerous educational segments that featured real life people, puppets, and cartoon characters that taught about words, spelling, vowels, vocabulary, definitions, and pronunciation. For example, there was a segment that featured a song about the sound, “op”, and by learning how to read “op”, you could read words like, hop, mop, or chop. The lessons on the show were often taught in fun games or in song, so it would be enjoyable for kids. In

I remember every morning my grandparents would read the LA Times newspaper and my grandmother would read the sales pages for the local grocery stores out loud to my grandfather. I would watch her and look at the paper as she read it off to him. I started preschool a year before everyone else my age. I started when I was 3 years old. My Mom would read to me every night. She made reading fun, she ordered personalized books where I was included as a main character. The books were from Disney and Sesame Street. Like Fredrick Douglass I also carried a book wherever I went. I would finish reading books sometimes in a day depending on the size of the

Just like many other children, I was taught to read and write by my parents. As far as I can remember, I was easily taught the alphabet and how to put words together. They got me letter blocks so I can put them

I majored in English in the Humanities and Social Sciences college at Rowan University. At the same time, I studied a number of courses in the discipline of secondary education. I enjoyed studying teaching but early in my undergraduate career I determined that teaching English at the high school level was not my desired life path. Rather, teaching English Literature as a professor was my life's purpose. As an undergraduate, I have taken a deluge of class varying from children's literature to Toni Morrison studies in an attempt to further understand literature. Concentrating on the ways in which modern literature apprehends the American experiences within the written word. At the point of graduation, I accomplished a

My journey began as soon as I was put into my first “American” classroom (1st grade). It felt as if I was an alien that somehow got airdropped onto a foreign planet, everyone around me spoke in weird sounds and wrote strange symbols on paper. Days went by very slow as I struggled to keep up with the class, all the while trying to make sense of things and adapt to the new environment. One day the class was asked to copy down the alphabet as instructed by the teacher. This was when I got my first taste of writing in a different language. I found out that drawing letters and numbers that correlated with my native language (in aspects of shape and flow) were much easier to replicate. With the help of my supportive teachers and countless hours of practice and repetition I started to recognize letters for what they were and began to formulate simple sentence. Little did I know the importance of this stage as it was crucial in setting a solid foundation of understanding of grammar and vocabulary.

As a child, my interests were more focused on reading than writing. In elementary school I fell in love with books. Initially I read simple children’s books, much like everybody else in my class, but it did not take long for my passion to drive me to read more difficult writings. Fiction books quickly became a replacement for any childhood toys. Instead of blocks or stuffed animals I would ask my parents for books. Since they were aimed at young readers, they tended to be short. I found myself going through them within days, and then soon several hours. Towards the end of elementary school I was reading series like Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. I was captivated, and reading truly opened up a whole new world for me.