My Literacy Memories

My reading experience has had a lot of ups and downs. I was never an over-achiever in my language arts or reading classes, which has affected my passion for reading. A lot of my opinions about reading have changed even just since this summer. I don’t have any recollection of reading before kindergarten except for learning the letters. Kindergarten was a struggle for me, but after kindergarten to third grade. In third grade I peaked and absolutely loved reading and writing, but it faded in middle school and has been fading since then for me.

As a girl growing up around a group of bikers, boys and two parents who listened to eighties hair bands and metal, you wouldn’t think that I read or was read to frequently before starting school. I pursued in reading quite often, actually. When I finally started school, I had the tendency of keeping to myself and staying quiet. There never have been very many friends in the picture of my life. I learned at a young age that there often are going to be cliques, even when you’re an eight year old in girl scouts. I stood out in more ways than one, but for now I’m only going to elucidate why reading is so salient to me.

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

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

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 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.

My literacy narrative focused on an event, which changed my perspective towards reading. This event revolved around my life and later resulted in a better version of myself. It was about a competition for which I appeared during my freshman year in high school. There were some key points, which I noticed while working on my literacy narrative. Throughout my work, I enjoyed the ways of employing the five authentic skills that enriched my narrative with not just my words, but also with my emotions that are associated to it.

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.

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.

My first memories of literacy start when I was in kindergarten. My parents wanted me in a private school and that private school had many requirements. You had to be a gifted child or you had to wait a year and I had to wait a year. When I was admitted into the school you had to choose a dominant hand to write with and when I say choose you had to be right handed. I refused to pick a hand, because I would write with both. I was ambidextrous and the school did not believe in or allow children to be ambidextrous. They tried to force me to choose my right hand as my dominant hand and I wanted to choose my left. After they finally allowed me to choose my dominant hand I was able to proceeded into the program. This school system believed that children

Growing up, I would spend a lot of time with my grandparents because my parents were always working and it was easier than dropping me off at a daycare. My grandparents were avid readers; they read when they woke up in the morning, after eating lunch, and right before they went to bed. I guess some of that rubbed off on me after so many years of staying at their house and I started to read as much as them. My family never made me feel like reading was a bad thing and they fostered my love of reading since I was a kid. I don’t have one memory that sticks out as the most memorable because they were always so supportive. All of those memories come together to make one positive reading experience like every birthday I would get a book or a gift card to a bookstore or when I went with my grandparents to the grocery store they would always let me get a book and read it to me.

I have been reading as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I didn’t have anything to do except read books and play with my brother, who was two years younger than me. Some of my fondest memories are of days spent at the library, piling books into baskets to take home and read over and over again. In kindergarten, we spent many minutes of the day reading. Finally, in seventh grade, all of my hard work paid off. It all started with Nurse Nancy, the first book I learned how to “read”.

The first thought I had about my research question was where does our love for reading or writing originate. I came to the conclusion that one of the biggest factors of a student or child loving reading or writing comes from their literacy sponsors. Deborah Brant defines literacy sponsors as “the figures who turned up most typically in memories of literacy learning” (Brant). I believe when we are younger we have a love for reading and writing because our literacy sponsors are our

As I walked back to my desk, my heart pounded, and I gritted my teeth in pure frustration as I boiled over with the frustration of defeat.

As a child, I remember sitting in my shared bedroom with my oldest sister on the bunk underneath me, and learning how to read with my leap frog. To me it felt like a toy, but there were mini books you would place in it and you simply picked up the stylus and touched words and pictures. As you touched the designated items the speaker would say the words, and play music sometimes related. My literacy would have been dependent on the educational opportunities around me, and how wealthy the area was I went to school in, but my mother always made sure I had what I needed to succeed, lik the leap frog for example. This is my earliest memory of literacy in my life.