Reading Self-Analysis

I chose the article “Disliking Books at an Early Age” by Gerald Graff. He is a teacher of literature and states his advantage as a teacher since he hated and feared books while growing up. Graff discovered something that provided reading to be more appealing. He engaged himself into the text where reading became fun. Growing up Graff was raised in an ethnically mixed Chicago neighborhood where he feared that if he had anything to do with books, he would get beaten up. Graff, however, would sit down and try to read novels, but he could not relate to any of the text, he would just stare blankly at the pages. Later Graff’s fear developed into flunking college. Graff then discovered a new way of reading finding a way to make reading fun. Graff put himself into the text, a sense of personal engagement.  The main point in Graff’s article is to read at an angle and keep an open mind while being patient.

I never had a passion to read when I was younger in grade school. I never liked to read, unless it was any of the “Black Lagoon” books then you had my full attention, and if it wasn’t any of those I would not read it for anything. All I wanted was to read those books, and I am pretty sure I read almost all of them I liked them so much. I especially did not like reading when teachers would make us read at night and fill out a reading chart to go along with it and would make our parents sign it so they made sure that we really did read everyday. It was pure torture for me. I dreaded the reading. My teachers even gave us prizes and treats for reading at home and I still did not want to read. One year I did not tell my mom that I had a reading log and was required to

I still remember today what my middle school English teacher told me, “It is not the reading you hate, it is the books you are reading. You just need to find the type of books that you enjoy and then that is when reading will start to mean something more to you.” It took a while, but I eventually did find the type of books that I love. The first books that opened my eyes were the titles Beastly, The Twilight Saga, The Last Song, Uglies, and Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. It opened a whole new world to me and I continued to find books that I thoroughly enjoyed- which I would have never imagined happening. Then one day, I stumbled upon First Date and Staring Me by Krista McGee and I fell in love. I read them at least ten times a piece. Every time I got a book project, and I got to choose the book, I choose one of those. If I got a book project with a new teacher and she did not know that I had already read those books, I would read them again. There were numerous times when my parents found out that I did not sleep at all the previous night because I stayed up reading. Do not get me wrong, they were glad I was reading, but they were not very enthused that I stayed up all night to read. This continued through high school when I began to adventure out to new authors, such as John Green, Steven Chbosky, and F. Scott

Reading is one of the many things that I enjoy doing. The problem is I only enjoy reading if I am reading something very interesting, otherwise I absolutely hate reading. In elementary school there were so many books

My dislike for reading initially developed during middle school as a result of my pretentious selection of books. Goaded on by my family, my over inflated ego, and my teachers, I read To Kill a Mockingbird, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and other books that most would consider serious literature. While it did help me expand my vocabulary and develop my basic comprehension skills, reading harder books also killed my love for reading. For example, A Farewell to Arms was an extremely frustrating book to read because while I knew about the themes and ideas, the subtleties through which the themes were presented often slipped past me; as a 7th grader, Hemingway's simple and implicit writing was difficult to fully understand. Furthermore, I struggled with grasping the purpose of serious literature given my preference for the hard sciences. Whereas science reduced complicated processes into elegant algorithms and equations, literature seemed to be dedicated to twisting simple topics into nuanced ideas. To me, the books filled with intricate levels of complexity were frustrating, discouraging, and frankly quite boring. So for a while, reading became a chore, and I stopped finishing books, choosing instead to focus on math and science.

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.

One of my all time passions is reading. I credit my love of reading to my dad, who has spent a great portion of his life reading as well. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad reading Harry Potter to me and my siblings, though I was the only child listening. My love of reading has only grown since then. Through reading I have learned about countless worlds and thousands of stories. I have discovered myself in between the pages of many different books, and I have learned more about people and the world arund me. Of all the ways to spend time, reading may be my absolute

Growing up I was never a big fan of reading, but as I got older I noticed books are very essential. They are filled with adventures and lessons that only exist in wildest imagination. Without books many of us wouldn't know half the things we know today. Books teaches us math , science, history ,and even how to use a computer or how to play a sport. With so many different genres to choose from and millions of books to read , the task of reading can never get boring, especially when you're actively reading

When we were required to read books for school, other classmates complained about it, but it was one of my favorite parts of class. Even though I didn’t always like the books, I liked to read books that I wouldn’t have picked out to read. I liked being surprised when I enjoyed a book that I didn’t think I would like.

I haven't always been keen on reading as I am today. I can’t really remember the reason for my distaste in literature, but I think it mostly came from me just thinking that reading was too difficult or I was just me being a stubborn six year old not wanting to do it, but none the less I was like this for a lot of my earlier years. I was able to read a small amount of text because my parents teaching me, using Doctor Seuss books like Cat and the Hat and One FIsh Two Fish Red Fish Blue FIsh as learning tools to help me become more fluent. I never really understood reading until my stepmom moved in with us. Since my sister and I were still very young

In elementary I always found myself being the kid that when our class went to the library I would always find the books with a lot of pictures and not very much to read, I thought it was a lot more entertaining to just look at pictures than it was to read a whole bunch of what I thought was meaningless text. I honestly don’t know why I dislike reading so much because I’m actually a pretty good reader, I feel like a part of the reason is I grew up being kind of shy and I never liked talking in front of people and it felt like most of the reading I did in school was always aloud with the whole class so that being the case every time I heard we were reading I never wanted to do it because I was so

I looked through your book and BOOM just like that, and I found the exact same thing that I had to do, in your book. It has changed the way I read a book. When I read a book it makes me think of what I would have done in real life. I now reread part of the book over and over.

Ever since I was in elementary school, I was never able to grasp what I was reading. It was always a chore and I would speed through it or avoid it entirely. The extra help I received was meant to help me provoke, my eventual, love for reading, but at the time only made me feel as though I wasn't smart enough to read what everyone else my age could. While most kids would push themselves to read books like Harry Potter, I was the kid who was still reading the Magic Treehouse series. It was through the assistance of my parents encouraging me to read 30 minutes every night that caused me to love reading and become the reader I am today.

Reading has been one of my favorite hobbies since I was a little child. I grew up as a normal child should grow and eventually I had to start learning for me to fit in society. My literacy started many years ago, after I knew how to talk and communicate with people. Reading my alphabet was quite stressful and I had to be given a hand by my family members. I remember my parents reading with me and it was the most meaningful and memorable way to spend time with me. This is because I liked reading a lot and I was eager to learn so that I could fit in with my older siblings. My favorite books were storybooks taking about adventures and fairytales

My reading experiences have always been enjoyable. I love to read when I find an interesting book. It’s easy for me to be sucked into a book if the story catches my eye. I mostly like to read teen romance novels. They appeal to me simply because of my interest in a love story. My parents hate buying me books because they know I’ll be finished reading within a week or so. Reading has always been really easy to me. It seems almost natural to be sucked into other worlds. The words start to flow over the pages and suddenly it feels like I’m not even reading anymore. Unless I have to read a book for school or it doesn’t catch my attention, I might have a hard time bringing myself to read it.