My First Teacher I Ever Had Was My Mother

Like many parents, mine were supportive of my learning and development at an early age and as I grew, they read to me along with other learning techniques. My mother and father read various children 's books to me in their spare time; and after I had matured some had me read along as well. The books we read together consisted of fairy tale books and short stories such as The Turtle and the Hare. Reading together helped me learn a wider variety of words and inspired myself to pursue reading at an early age on my own. When I was around the age of four or five; my mother and father bought me the leapfrog read along toy as a birthday gift. The toy came with children’s books and a pen that was used to follow along as

I do not recall much of my literacy experience. My parents were not big on reading. They relied on the school to increase my knowledge of print. Yet, I do remember special moments spent with my mother. Every Sunday she would buy the paper for the discounts that it offered. Once she was finished searching and cutting coupons, she would remove the comic section of the paper. She would call my brother and myself to her bed and read Garfield, Marmaduke and The Family Circle. Going to the library is another distinctive memory. My mother and I would spend time selecting the right book to take home and read together.

Some of the oldest and fondest memories I have from my childhood are those of my mother reading to me. Before I even began Kindergarten, I remember my mom reading stories to me from children’s books, or making up stories as she went along. I enjoyed listening to the stories and still remember some to this day. She also taught me how to write my name, count, and recite the alphabet. I loved the time I spent reading with my mom because she made it fun, so much so that I didn’t realize I was learning.

Literacy memories and events began at a young age for me, and while teachers and family members all impacted my opinions and preferences for reading, every book I read and writing assignment given to me helped me form my literacy story and come to enjoy reading. Many literacy moments came from when I was young, like my mom or dad reading to me before bed or teachers reading to me at school their favorite books. All of these memories were accompanied by everyone saying how great reading was, and for a while I didn’t believe them. I had so many forced experiences with reading that it was almost painful for me to pick up a book. But as time went on and the reading I was still forced to do intensified, a better relationship with reading and writing

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.

How has literacy impacted my life? From learning to read sight words and write sentences to progressing all the way to thick chapter books and lengthy essays, literacy has been a long and incredibly significant journey in my life. Literacy has been a fantastic and influential adventure because of exciting personal experiences that first took root at age two, the inspiration of an elementary school teacher, Mrs. Peake, and memorable events including the Accelerated Reader program and discovering my favorite childhood book series.

One of the most eye opening experiences of my life occurred in the second grade. I would have never thought that doing one simple assignment in elementary school could change my whole perspective on literacy. My understanding of literacy was sparked when I had read my first real book. I remember sitting down on the vividly colorful carpet day dreaming about playing Mario Cart on my Nintendo 64 while everyone was obediently listening to the teacher read a book out loud. It wasn’t that I did not know how to read or listen, I just didn’t care. Reading to me used to be tedious because I did not understand the purpose of it. I did not grow up with the luxury of my parents reading to me because they weren’t literate in English, so I had to figure out for myself why literacy is vital in everyday life. My ongoing learning experience with literacy can be traced back to one simple visit to library.

Most of what I can remember from my childhood is being read to by my mom and her teaching me how to read, alongside my older sister. During the day all that I wanted to do was have my mom read to me, so she would. And every night before I went to bed she would let me pick one book for her to read to me. It was my favorite part of everyday. It wasn’t just at home that people would read to me, my grandma would too whenever we went to her house. She had this book full of short stories that always had a good lesson at the end. I loved hearing my grandma’s soothing voice right before I fell asleep. My favorite book was “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” by Dr. Seuss. Since my mom read it to me at least once everyday, I began to memorize it. I wasn’t actually reading the words on the page, I just knew the story so well that I could recite it.

As a six-month-old baby books had opened up a whole entire new world of experience for me. My inspiration to learn how to read and write was encouraged by my Mother and Grandmother. This is because they read out loud to me before bed occasionally and gave me the best time of my life by introducing me to a library. By two years of age I developed speech and other communication skills. This helped me understand and develop a favorite book, “PJ Funny Bunny,” and I would stare at the pages pretending I was reading them. I would continually pretend to read with other Dr. Seuss books, Smurf pop-up books (I imagined I was a part of these for hours), sniff & scratches, and sensory books. I had just begun

I believe that my literacy past has affected the reader and writer I am today. There is a lot I can talk about that has has an effect on me being the reader and writer I am today. One being the country and environment I lived in as a kid. In Gambia teachers don’t take reading seriously as they should. We as nursery students, focused more on learning how to spell and doing the math and also writing. We weren’t giving much books to read, maybe one or two books the whole semester. And because of that, I wasn’t a fond reader. Regardless of us not given books to read, we were giving many writing exercises so that really helped. My family however thought that reading is very important and because of that, they bought my siblings and I lots of book

My literacy skills began to truly develop while sitting on an orange and blue tapestry that displayed all the continents and listening to my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Green, read an African folktale, this is when I began understanding literacy. She read slowly and pointed to every word, and used lots of enthusiasm when she showed us the pictures. She finished reading, and now we are at our desks, and singing the alphabet song.

Ever since I can remember, my beautiful mother, Anne, would read to me. She would set me in her lap in our big green rocking chair and read Winnie the Pooh, and Dr. Seuss but my all time favorite was Dr. Seuss's "Green Eggs & Ham". No matter where we were or who we were with, she would read that book to me. She read it so many times I'm sure she could recite it word for word. After a few hundred times of her reading it to me, I had all 62 pages memorized. I could even tell when she skipped a page, which I don't blame her, its a long book. At the time, I had no idea simply reading this book would affect my literacy. But by 3, I had 50 words memorized just from the book. As I grew, so did my love for books. I often read in my preschool with

I remember back in second grade my mom used to read books to me. I remember being all cuddled up in a bed with some hot chocolate by my side, just lying there listening to my mother read me chapters from the books that I was supposed to read. The only reason why she read them to me was because she knew that I was not going to read them myself. It’s not that I couldn’t actually read

Growing up, both of my grandmothers was school teachers who enjoyed reading to me and my cousins whenever the opportunity arose. Many of my favorite memories as a child learning to read lead back to my favorite book my nana would always read to me, The Napping House by Audrey Wood. I would quote the book cover to cover, before actually learning to read, pretending that I was reading in the meantime. My mother also played an important role in my learning to read and write, she and my nana were always encouraging me to read book series like Junie B. Jones, The Little House on the Prairie, The Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew,

My mother, Kelly Perkins, has been the most influential part in my life of reading with the way she made me when I didn’t exactly want too and taking me to visit libraries and famous authors houses.. This might have to do with the fact that she is an english teacher and has discovered that children who read more typically do better in school. Since reading is her area of expertise she influenced me from a young age to appreciate reading, although that may not have always been the easiest with a stubborn child like myself she still managed to never give up no matter how difficult I was. Suffering through we managed to come out with many stories to tell.