My Literacy Cannot Be Traced Back To One Specific Moment

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.

I have memories of using literacy all the way back to when I was a toddler to now. Reading and writing always came easy to me as little kid from what I can remember. My earliest memories of reading would be from when I was very young, possibly still a toddler or a tad bit older. Every night before bed, my mom and I would sit in my bed, she would read to me. We read Bible stories from the children’s Bible, Goodnight Moon, Cat in the Hat and many other children’s books. That was my favorite part about bedtime when I was little. Although she was reading to me, and all I was doing was listening and wanting to look at the pictures, her reading to me every night was a huge influence for me and was what made me want to learn how to read. I would without

My first experience to literacy came as a young adult. I have always been reluctant with my education, because of the family problems I experienced growing up. The harsh treatment our family received growing up made it very difficult to study in school, my body was physically in class but my mind was not. The trials and tribulations I went through growing up as a kid continued throughout my teenage years. Dropping out of high school I believe brought upon literacy difficulty. At the age of twenty-three, I finally had enough of feeling undereducated. Living in my mother’s basement with no job and an 8th grade education, the walls started to close in on me as my frustration became greater by the minute.

Literacy plays a huge role in many people’s lives everyday, whether it is learning how to read and write for the first time or writing a five-page essay for the hundredth time. We experience literacy differently and have our very own unique stories on how it has impacted our lives and had made us who we are today. It is an essential aspect that I use in my everyday life, such as in relationships, daily interactions with others, and learning. It has become such a powerful aspect and human right in which it allows one to speak his/her mind and in some cases express their opinion to the world. My personal literacy history has shaped me into who I am today because without my experiences I would not have been able to gain the confidence and

Since a child going up, literacy was not my strong suit. Literacy throughout my life seem not to cope with me. Later as I grew up, literacy meant to me that it is one’s ability to read, write, and speak. More importantly there is a more meaning of literacy, meaning that not only writing, reading, and speaking, but able to understand, analyze, and communicate with other peoples’ ideas. Soon enough literacy has made an impact on my life, it has been and will be a lifelong process. Literacy will always be with me, starting from my past and ending in my future.

My literacy narrative first unfolded in the playroom of my childhood home when I was an inquisitive two-year-old. My parents would sit down with me on the carpet and patiently teach me sight words. Every time I would

Literacy plays a huge role in my daily life. Every single day I read and write. Whether it’s writing an email or reading a text message, class assignment, discussion board, etc. My literacy journey is unique because I have had different experiences. As a result, this is how my literacy journey has let me to be the reader that I am.

One event that defined a part of my life that involved literacy was when I had to write a

If I had to create a timeline of where literacy began for me formally, I would say in or around about the third grade. I grew up in a single-parent home with ten other siblings including myself; my mother was deaf. The sounds that I remember hearing for a long time were high pitch noises that my mom used to communicate with us. I attended preschool where I learn to cite the alphabets and numbers, but the most memorable lessons in literacy I learned came from my mother. She had a unique way of teaching us; for example, I remember my mom drawing pictures of different animals and labeling them. Although she was unable to verbally pronounce their names she signed out each letter, which is when I got my first lesson in sign language and spelling.

I have my journey in learning how to read and write never stops. Understanding the importance of literacy came to me at the high school, when I faced real challenges and understanding how important that is to learn, to create, to dream and to help others.

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.

The first teacher that I fully understood what writing meant was freshmen year in high school. My teacher was Mr. Landuyt and he explained to us that writing is for our own personal benefit. At that moment I realized that writing is not just for a grade to keep our parents happy. The most successful thing I have ever written was a short story that I wrote when I was a senior in

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.

To be literate, is not just the ability to recite and inscribe. It is something I think more than that. It involves a very intricate mechanics of linguistics, but eventually forms a sophisticated yet beautiful form of language usage. I was not born with literacy sense. I gained reading skills from bedtime stories from my parents and eventually learned formally to read and write at school. From that, I was able to mold my style of writing with the help of the teachers. I believe that most of us have been through a similar experience as I did in attaining literacy. Even with the majority of the necessary literacy skills I gained from school and at home, I was still wondering the reason behind all the hard work to read and write. Until one day, I was sent to a leadership camp as a representative from my school. From that camp, I knew that all of my gained literacy has now made sense to me because it has changed my perspective of the world through literacy.

I was sitting in class one day and we were figuring out how to spell and spell our names, which appeared to be pretty straightforward right? We were told to write our names 5 times and then raise our hand when we were finished. I finished so quickly and thought to myself “wow that was simple.” I was the first one finished and I was sure that I did not need any help because I seemed to have it all figured out on my own. The teacher comes to check on my paper and proceeds to let me know that I have spelled my name wrong. She had advised that I attempt again in a different way. It was pushed aside as a typical error and it never really addressed me with any significance. I proceeded like this until about first grade. The majority of my work got returned to me, corrected for me, all without help or any clarification by any means. Thinking back now, I’m not sure that my instructors were aware of how to deal with these types of problems.