Personal Narrative: The Accelerated Reading Program

One of the biggest turning points for me was my eighth grade year, when I failed my first spelling test. That was the first year I actually had to study for spelling tests, and I began to lose hope. I worried that I would never be able to write amazing stories or read experienced books, because I couldn’t just ‘wing it’ anymore. But my eighth grade reading teacher, Mr. Stanley, showed me that I could do amazing things with book talks, presentations, and discussions. I found that towards the end of the year, all I wanted to do was improve myself, because after all, how could I be a teacher if I never learned anything new?

From my experiences, I have learned that effort and dedication are the key factors needed to gain magnificent literacy skills. Even though, I had to start from the bottom all over again, I was able to succeed in a new language.That’s why, I feel that it is extremely important to keep expanding our knowledge in order to develop our understanding, imagination and language. Although, I feel that I have improved my literacy throughout my 19 years, I know there is much more to learn.

Growing up with a father in the military, you move around a lot more than you would like to. I was born just east of St. Louis in a city called Shiloh in Illinois. When I was two years old my dad got the assignment to move to Hawaii. We spent seven great years in Hawaii, we had one of the greatest churches I have ever been to name New Hope. New Hope was a lot like Olivet's atmosphere, the people were always friendly and there always something to keep someone busy. I used to dance at church, I did hip-hop and interpretive dance, but you could never tell that from the way I look now.

My experiences as a writer have been both very engrossing and strenuous. I have learned a great quantity on both reading and writing, though, I continue to struggle on things that I have learned by this time, making the same mistakes that I do not even realize. Sometimes things are not so easy to understand when reading information, especially if the wording of an article is difficult for example. I love the idea of learning new things everyday. These past years as a writer have been very interesting, and I have learned and grasped many concepts I have been taught along the way.

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.

Having to write about my own literacy is hard to do, first of all it’s hard to recall things that happened when you were a child let alone when I started to read and write, I remember going to school playing, the teacher reading to us, making vowel sounds and learning to write my name; I recall the teacher giving out the spelling list and taking it home to practice before Friday’s test, I would go to school hoping and praying that I would not misspell any words; as usual I missed a couple of words and I knew what that meant.

The first book I remember reading was Go Dogs Go by P.D. Eastman. I would read that book once a day with my mother, and never get tired of it. Then other books like The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hears a Who, and many other Dr. Seuss books came next. I couldn’t read enough of them growing up through kindergarten and first grade. Then all of a sudden I moved to Chelan and forced to read to meet my AR goal. Now, I am not trying to blame Accelerated Reader for my lack of motivation to read today, but I do believe it played a role in how I began to hate reading in elementary school.

In my earliest years, I can recall one of our projects with my 1st grade teacher. It was very memorable for me, because we went all out for it. The project like most of us in that class remember was to write a story. The story was Flat Stanley. I was mostly ahead of my game in my early years. Then, there came my 5th grade year, The teacher i had in that class always got on me, for not paying attention. I almost got held back that year because i couldn’t focus. That year onward, was a struggle for me.

Diving into past memories is something I am never found of. There is a lot of pain hidden behind some of my past experiences, but also a lot of triumph. It is always interesting to force yourself to retrieve some of those hidden memories. Sometimes the things you remember can be very surprising. Things that seemed long forgotten, can abruptly come back in a flash. The farthest memory I can recall about my own literacy experience is when I began first grade. At this stage, I remember feeling very confused about the whole purpose of going to school. I felt as if I was the only one not being able to keep up with the other children. I didn’t know what was cool, how to make friends, or even know how to play board games like “Candyland.” I was just not exposed to certain things that the other children in my class were aware of prior to beginning first grade. Most of all, I did not like learning. I liked doing things

My first main literacy who be my relationship with God, oh how I need him every day, I could write endlessly about this one, I feel strongly about my connection with the father and it makes me happy to even know the enjoy it has bought into my life .Oh how my soul rejoices every time I think about how much I need him every day he is the center of my peace and I could not start my day without him. He knows my name he is definitely my main literacy every day. The next main literacy would be my job and which I need that in order to live in this world and be a productive citizen in this society. To have money to sustain my lifestyle. My final literacy would be my whole family. They mean the world to me, there is nothing more important to me than

In all honesty, I don't remember a lot about becoming literate. I didn't have a special moment or time when I knew that reading or writing going to take me somewhere. According to my mom she started to read to me when I was one, so there wasn't anything that could've excelled me much farther before going into kindergarten. One of the requirements in elementary school was to read every night which I believe was an important factor of me improving my literacy. Reading and writing used to me excite me because I would immerse myself into a book or write a whole new universe on a page. I made reading and writing something personal to me. I now realize that every book and every piece of writing can be worthwhile in one way or another.

As technology evolves, the traditional style writing classrooms should do so as well. Students are used to the typical routine, in which an instructor lecture and hands out assignments. However, is that really the most effective way of teaching for all students? Teachers neglect the fact that not all students learn the same way. In learning this, I propose some changes that could be made in order to increase learning effectively such as; the choice of physical work verses online work, communications and feedback to students, and essays.

I personally think that in personal narrative a literacy work has more of an impact. I believe this because it can convey more details than a movie based on the literacy work. Both I believe are good ways to portray the sense of time but in different ways. In a movie you see more of how the directors see things instead of being able to imagine it

I picked up one of the books and fell in love with all the things that it could teach me. My mother who was a special education teacher at the time had always pushed me and my siblings to read. She brought home tons of books for us to read. When I told her I found a great book on horses she was so proud, and from that moment on I have always had a love of reading. My love for reading has grown so much that I now read everything in sight, but reading wasn’t enough for me as it turned out. From all the great books I read I started to come up with ideas about new exciting books people could write, that I could write. So during my eight grade year my burning desire to write a book compelled me to finally do so. I used three notebooks and a ton of lead and wrote my story. When I was finished, I typed it up on my computer and printed it out to show everyone I knew. When people saw that I wrote a book they were proud of me and this pride made me want to continue, but sadly school activities took up all my time and I was unable to finish my second book. My story of how I learned how to love to read and write isn’t quite like Sherman Alexie’s superman moment but it is

My earliest experience with reading and writing were traumatizing especially when I was in the first grade. I still recall the experience I went through to this day. It made me really hate myself because the other kids were making fun of me.