Personal Narrative: Learning To Read

Fredrick Douglas once wrote, “Once you learn, you will be forever free “. As a child growing up with two older siblings, we were taught that learning how to read or write was going to be valuable in our everyday life. I knew that I had the potential to read and write, but just did not apply myself to get where I desired to be. I knew that learning how to read could be a major learning process which can very calm and help keeps your attitude. My life was transformed by reading that grew to be an aspect in my life. There were numerous of books that stood out and directed me toward s different direction, taught me valuable lessons and that helped me find certain things in life. I often think to myself if it were not from some of the books that

Maya Angelou once said, “When you know better, you do better.” And that’s what I’m doing now. When I was a young girl, my mother never really read to me. She would sing instead, and tell me stories about her childhood. She would tell me nursery rhymes and stories like The Three Little Pigs or Alice in Wonderland. I enjoyed every moment my mom would spend with me, and when she would act out some of the scenes and I would really be into the story with her, but reading wasn’t something that I would focus on.

“I want to know how you keep holding on and believe again or how you never stop never believing to begin with.” -Jessica Watson

I sat there, on my queen sized bed, to let what she just said minutes earlier marinate for a spell on my mind. It was like I had an epiphany. Her words were true. It was one of many things she fed to my brain that I remember to this day. Whether it was a small issue or a significant life changing decision, her words live through me to help me answer accordingly.

It was called the Kindle. By this point, I wanted to read every book I could get my hands on. Eventually, I did not have enough space in my room to keep all of my books. The jet black Kindle that I received for my birthday gave me an electronic way to easily store and transport all of my books. At this age, I had been reading chapter books for a few years now, but I wished to expand my horizons. I wanted to read the complex books that I saw my older friends and cousins with, and the Kindle gave me an easy way to store these larger books. Ergo, the first book I got on my Kindle was a large novel called Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone. This book opened me up to a new type of reading experience, reading a series of books. At night and during meals, I would sit with my Kindle and read continuously. Sometimes, my parents would ask me to wash the dishes or do the laundry, and I would not hear them due to my total immersion in the novel. In one instance, I stayed awake until around 11:30 p.m. because I could not bear to stop turning the pages of the novel. All in all, reading a series of books for the first time assisted me in connecting with characters of novels in ways that I had never thought possible. Reading a series of novels like Harry Potter gave me the opportunity to immerse myself into a new and exciting world like never

As we drove home her first response was" no matter how hard things get I don't give up."

- When I would read a book, sometimes I would get so into it that I could literally imagine all of the scenarios and the events that unfolded. It was the use of imagination that really got me to read books and develop my reading skills further.

In my early childhood, I liked reading more than the average child. Unfortunately, I read all sorts of books, but never truly found my niche in the wide world of children’s books. I had always liked the magic aspect of fairy tales, but the lack of originality made these stories disinteresting after a while. After voicing these

When I was learning to read, it wasn’t hard,although it did take me a couple years to figure it out. I had always been very smart with language,speaking full sentences like, “Mommy, can we go to the park today?” at two. Once I used those skills and mastered reading, it opened up a new world for me; the world of wizards and dragons, imagination, gods and goddesses, and mentally ill people speaking out and telling everyone how they think. After I began to read, I continued, addictively reading every chance I got. I would read at school and be overjoyed when we went to the library. It even got to the point where I couldn’t sleep without reading. Reading was,and still is, my oasis, my shelter.

As for me, reading wasn’t an effortless task. Reading and writing had become something I loved to do, that was until skipping lines and rereading previous lines kept happening more frequently. Vision therapy became the usual routine, making my eyes pair together, allowing me to comprehend what I was reading.

When I was younger I hated reading, because I was too slow and never good at it. As I would look at some of my classmates, I noticed how fast they were at reading and how easily they understood the reading. I remember thinking to myself that I wanted to be a good reader like them one day. At the time, of my fifth grade self I was not an avid reader; it wasn’t until the book Marley and Me that changed my perspective.

When I was younger I always had trouble reading. I never understood what I was reading and I also had to go to speech at least twice a week. My mom always tried to work with me and tried to help teach me how to understand reading but it didn’t help. One summer when I was about to go into 8th grade I decided I was going to try to read. I found this great book series and I just couldn't stop reading the books and when I finished that series I just wanted to keep reading. So I found myself wanting to go the the Library for more books and then more and then more and that was the year I finally got out of speech class and I also didn’t have to have a para in my classroom anymore. It was a great feeling to not have to miss class and I would

Early in my childhood, I found my love for reading in the Magic Tree House book series. The sense of adventure was fascinating and for the first time, I genuinely couldn’t put those books down. I tried to read every book in the series and ended up reading some of them several times over. After I tasted adventure for the first time, reading was nothing but fun. As Herbert Lui, a writer of Lifehacker’s Learning department says, “Reading can be extremely rewarding, but forcing yourself to do it can make it a chore”(Lui), and once I read Magic Tree House, that became true for myself as well.

My first memory as a reader was of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” but ironically, I did not read it. My mother read portions of the book every night before I went to sleep. This is truly the beginning of my reading journey. Bedtime reading associated reading with two things that I still love today, my mother and sleep! These nightly reading sessions became what helped calm me down and relax me before I fell asleep. My father was also influential. Although he did not read to me, he would act out scenes from children’s books as my mother read. This step in my life is symbolized by Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham”. Both Dr. Seuss’ and my dad’s sense of humor created a childish, but beautiful, view that books always lead to laughing. The next step of my life I became a reader and read the book “Oh Say Can You Say?” to one of my parents as often as I could. I loved the challenge of the tongue twisters, but I still had enough fun where I

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free” (Frederick Douglass). The liberating power one attains when you learn to read and process an array of information is second to none. This was somewhat of a difficult concept for eight year old me to understand, however, my mom sat me down and explained to me what she meant. She said that those who have the ability to read effectively have opportunities that are only available to individuals who possess that skill. She then turned into the equivalent of a car salesman and began to list off the numerous benefits of being a competent reader. After about five minutes of what felt like her rambling on and on about reading benefits I was ready to fall asleep. Picking up on this she gave me a personal narrative, “Personally [Austen] I have found that over time the more effective of a reader I have become my overall intelligence has increased. My