As a child, I always struggled in the area reading and writing. I was in the first grade when I came face to face with the issue. I wasn’t prepared like the other kids were in my class, they all seemed to thrive more and more each day in the subject. I didn’t, and nothing the teacher was doing with the subject would stick with me nor did it make me understand better. I felt out of place and different from everyone else in class because I couldn’t do what seemed to be easy for the rest of them. Struggling wasn’t an option for me, I was determined to find a way to catch up with all the others. I wanted to excel and understand reading and writing clearly because I realized that this was very important to have for myself later in the future. By my determination then I changed the way I see reading and writing now. During my first year of elementary school, I came to realize that reading and writing were a challenge for me. Understanding how these skills were was making me want to learn even more. My teacher, Mrs. Baker, noticed how I was falling behind from the rest of the students. She wanted to help me, so she told me to ask my mom to help me at home. She offered me books in her classroom to take home to read, which I did. Allowing me to take books from her classroom allowed me to have access to many genres that I would like. I read every night with my mother who helped me expand my reading and writing. I told my mother how I wanted to work harder to get better at my
My eighth grade year of Middle school. I had many challenges, with making friends and subjects. But one challenge was mathematics.I knew my eighth grade year was most important when it came transferring into my high school years, yet I didn’t do anything to raise my grade in mathematics at that time. It wasn’t until two I had a very low grade in mathematics on my report card at that I realized I needed to do something about my low grade. So after that report in math, I really was determined to really bring that F up to at least a B or A. So I remember I started to go to after school tutoring to get help with my math subject. They placed me with a teacher named Ms.Alice. And she really helped me with my subject.
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.
Going through life we learn and grow differently in literacy. As a young child, I started off my reading by looking at pictures and then grew into more difficult literacy. Trying to comprehend how much reading would impact my life in the future when I was little, was something I never understood. Being in high school now, I have learned how much reading and writing would impact me and how many opportunities it could provide for me. Since I was that child who could have cared less about my literacy, I soon became the child that got so worked up if I wasn’t as superb as others in reading. Throughout my childhood, my literacy has had its ups and downs, but now being in high school I have worked hard in my literacy which has allowed me to take
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.
My childhood was filled with literacy and I didn’t even know it. When I was 6 years old I read books like The Cat in The Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? All of which were good books while I was growing up. These books taught me a lot when I was younger and I didn’t even realize it. I would enjoy reading them many times,as I grew older I got into heavier books. My literacy improved a lot throughout my childhood.
My memories are blurry. They are fragments of disjointed moments, without a linear narrative. I remember reading. It was in Mrs. Davidson first grade class. My reading proficiency skills were very poor, the English language still thick and unnatural on my tongue. While some of the other students took a Gifted class, I had to take a remedial course—English Learners (EL)— just so that I could hold onto the edge. I remember reading. I had a hard copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar in my little hands, reciting only the first page of the book from memory. The classroom was dark; the stream of sunlight filtering through the windows served as our only illumination. The rest of the words on the book looked like a mess of jumbled letters. I couldn’t make out anything other than the words “the” and “and.” I remember enthusiastically pointing out my “fluency” to my teacher, seemingly applauding my menial abilities: “The catpater at droo!” (The caterpillar ate through). In the first-grade, my free time was spread sporadically between watching The Little Mermaid, catching ugly black crickets and pretending that I was Sailor Moon, guardian of the galaxy. In the first grade, I was not at all concerned with words, literacy and books. In the first grade, I did not know the power that words hold. I did not know that books would change my life.
My granny instilled my love of books and reading. Every night she would read me the same story before bed. A book that I still cherish, the little golden book version of Heidi. I believed I could be Heidi and my granny encourage my imagination, sewing me clothes like Heidi wore in the pages of my book. My imagination and love of reading grew and she encouraged it always. In her home, there were bookshelves and boxes filled with books and as soon as I learned how I began to read to her.
My year being a seventh grader has been filed with great experiences and growth. I was pushed to being the best I can be by my teachers and wonderful classmates in all of my classes. They did this by explaining to me how to make my work stronger and how to make me writing in my depth.This year has given me plenty of opportunities for my future.
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.
Overtime this helped to enhance my imagination for reading. Another thing our teacher did was present us with books as Christmas gifts. I remember my book was called “A Mouse House.” Inside she wrote that I was an excellent reader and said if we all came back over the holidays being able to read our books we could read anything we wanted. I believed her and practiced my book throughout winter break. She had given me hope for learning.
As a teenager, I now look back and realize how vital it is for children to learn to read and write at such young ages. I am so thankful for parents that read books with me before I even started school, and I am also thankful for the teachers who taught me vowel sounds, prefixes, suffixes, and much more. Teachers also taught me that reading could be fun, which encouraged students to want to read in their free time. Reading and writing are unique activities to me because these activities can be used academically or for personal entertainment. Reading has had a huge impact on my life in the past, present, and hopefully in the future.
My beginnings as a reader and a writer were most difficult to say the least. When I was almost five years old, I was up-rooted from my home during the middle of my pre-kindergarten year. My family and I moved halfway across the country so that my dad could take a well paying job that would financially support our family. Sadly, this majorly halted my learning abilities. As a little girl in a brand new school, surrounded by brand new people, I was scared. I didn’t know how to introduce myself, let alone speak with teachers that I had never met before.
Let me tell you how I became the reader and writer I am today. The early memories I have of reading are back in preschool and early elementary. I used to love to read and especially with my mom at home! Every night, we would end our day with a couple chapters in a book. She would read some to me then I would read some to her. She would usually end up reading most of it. At the end of every book I would ask her if I could read the last paragraph. There was just something I loved about getting the last words in. I had to read it absolutely perfectly and wouldn’t be satisfied if I messed up. If I did I would reread it until I nailed it. Every year that MOE had the book fair it always got me excited. It was one of my favorite days by far. I remember
Through the years of elementary school, I excelled in reading because of the comprehension I had and my love for books. We were always required to read a book, because we needed a certain amount of accelerated reading points each month. My favorite books were Junie B. Jones and Captain Underpants. I enjoyed reading during these years because it came natural to me and I admired the fictional aspects of books and the way they could make my mind run wild. The teachers I had I credit some of my success to because they helped me succeed in reading during elementary school.
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.