Reflection About Reading

One of my biggest challenges was accepting the fact that I had numerous habits that I developed in high school which were restricting my creativity. After reading Revising Attitudes by Brock Dethier, I now know that your first draft isn’t meant to be perfect. While writing drafts you need to let it go and not try to perfect anything. A rough draft is called rough for a reason. As a perfectionist, it was hard for me to comprehend the fact that I need to let go. I quickly found out that this would end up being one of my biggest weaknesses. I became frustrated with myself since I couldn’t figure out ways to revise my essay that had obvious problems. I was able to learn from my mistakes from the last assignment and avoid them. I now know to start narrowing your topic down when brainstorming your topic. Then you would continue to be more specific as you do your initial research. This helped me be crystal clear with what I wanted to write about and in the end helped me figure out which claims

Furthermore, as a writer and reader, I have my goals that I set out to achieve to become better. An example of a goal that I have for writing is to start adding more evidence in my paragraphs so that the structures of my paragraphs become more ‘juicy.' Another goal I have for my writing is to have better grammar and higher vocabulary. Having better grammar and better

Over the first and second quarters of Dual Enrollment English at Brooke Point High School, I have grown immensely as a writer. I learned a great deal about how to write a paper, as well as, about myself. In the beginning of this course, I felt as if my assignments were going to overwhelm me; I also felt apathetic about completing them. This led me to create my own personal agenda as to how I would complete my assignments. My plan was to overcome my weaknesses and enhance my strengths within the construction my essays, depth of paragraphs and overall assignments.

When I was young I really didn’t like to read or write. My time was spent on playing video games or playing outside with my siblings. From time to time I would read a book just to keep the communistic school off my innocent back, but every so often I would find a book that caught my eye and I actually enjoyed reading. The first book I vividly remember enjoy was The Outsiders. This book stood out to me. It made me realize that not every book has to be a boring textbook, that I can actually read something and enjoy it. After reading this book I started to enjoy writing a little bit more. I had a better understanding that even if it’s an essay paper I can still have fun with it. I started to enjoy writing more than ever. Eventually my English

Previously, I had known Percy Jackson that it was just a fantasy Greek god novel. Although many friends said this book was very fun and easy to read, I had never been interested it. One day, teacher Kit told everyone to choose a book they like for reading practice, so I went to the library and picked Percy Jackson to be my new friend in the reading journey. When I ended the first chapter, I suddenly knew that this book would definitely not disappoint me.

Writing has always been something I dread. It’s weird because I love talking and telling stories, but the moment I have to write it all down on paper, I become frantic. It’s almost as if a horse race just begun in my mind, with hundreds of horses, or words, running through my mind, unable to place them in chronological order. Because I struggle to form satisfying sentence structure, it takes me hours, sometimes even days, to write one paper. It’s not that I think I’m a “bad writer,” I just get discouraged easily. Needless to say, I don’t think highly of my writing skills. When I was little I loved to both read and write. I read just about any book I could get my hands on, and my journal was my go to for my daily adventures. Although it’s

My reading process overall is very strong and went smoothly. As I read I annotated the pages and this helped me stay more focused and connected with the reading. Today it was hard for me after I went to the bathroom and came back to the reading because I disconnected from the reading and had to try and dive straight back in. I also put my cell phone far away from me when I read or do homework so that I will not be tempted to look at the phone instead of completing my reading.

Reading was one of my favorite activities as a child (and still is). Books took me to other realms and made me experience feelings I did not know boiled inside of me. Checking out books from libraries was one of the few luxuries I had as a child. It made me happy to read, and when I discovered writing, it made me even happier to write. As I grew, I learned that someone else’s words were captivating and moving me. Books became more than words on a page. They became someone’s thoughts and ideas, someone’s passion that were translated into spellbinding stories. There was one book in particular that had engraved the value of writing in my mind. It was a story about a boy who lived and his name was Harry Potter. After being forced to read the first installment of the Harry Potter series in third grade, I was oozing with wonder and astonishment at what JK Rowling had made me feel.

If you ponder about it, most people wouldn’t make it in this world we live in today if they didn’t know how to read and write. Reading is everywhere and is a very important, as well as a necessary, part of the human life. Everyday activities include reading road signs, magazines, billboards, texts, newspapers, emails, books, labels and so on. Over the years of learning how to properly read and write, my family and teachers have definitely made a massive impact on my reading and writing techniques that I use today. Books have been an enormous part of my life, if not one of the biggest. They provided me with unforgettable memories that I am thankful for today as I use their advice throughout my life.

One can describe reading with a plethora of words, good and bad; many people enjoy reading as well. At an early age, I knew I was not one of these people. I would not say I despised reading, however, I could not grasp the importance of reading and how it could be beneficial to me and my growth. Not only were my teachers enforcing this upon me, but my parents as well. The passages and scriptures that I had to read in class were not the problem, but when the hours invested in reading interfered with my after school free time the dilemma occurred. I had no passion in becoming an author or journalist, why must I sacrifice my free time to read a book that has nothing to do with my aspirations and goals in life? This was a recurring setback that was present until the beginning of my fifth year in elementary school; Consequently, during this period in my life my entire outlook on the matter would be altered forever.

My second year as a second grade teacher has been full of changes. This year, administration has changed the way that reading would look for second grade. Now, my students switch to four other teachers for the whole reading block whereas last year I had my class for the entire reading block. The group of students who I teach during reading range from DRA 20-28. These students are either on or above grade level in reading. For that reason, I am only responsible for the reading instruction of transitional and advanced readers.

My 3rd grade teacher Ms. Drew helped me learn how to read. Out of all my teachers I ever had I really appreciate her because she wanted to help me and had patient’s other teachers didn’t have with me. Without Ms. Drew in my life I would not even be where I am today because now-a days without being able to read you will be considered stupid and uneducated. She built up my confidence in reading by telling me I can do it, it worked because all the time and patients she put in me. I knew I can read I just was a hard-headed kid who needed somebody to sit down with me and show me how important it is to know how to read as an black male. Some problems I had when reading out loud is going skipping over words, struggling pronouncing words and just feeling ashamed and stopped reading when I miss pronounce a word.

Have you ever felt embarrassed about something but didn’t know how to handle it? That was me about reading out loud or reading overall. Reading was a huge problem for me. I never took it serious because I had the attitude, “I will find out how to do it one day.” Baltimore taught me a lot, but it failed me a lot also. What I mean by that is that it will show things that will not help you prosper in life such as how to sell drugs, how to hang out on the corner, and how to shoot and kill people. Although Baltimore can expose your eyes to some bad things, it can also expose you to some positivity. Baltimore will make you want to get on your grind and go to college to get a degree, be successful, and it will teach you that minimum wage is not acceptable these days. So when I say Baltimore has taught me a lot, but it has failed me as well, this is what I mean. My challenges followed me through elementary school where I didn’t value my education, middle school where I began to value my education and through my breakthrough in high school where my education became extremely important to me.

Composing an easy reader has helped me understand the genre because before this project I did not realize all of the stipulations and rules that are required in order for the book to be considered an easy reader. When my group began to work on this assignment, we thought that it would be relatively easy and straightforward. However, when we got together we realized that we had not followed a lot of the regulations needed in order for our book to be an easy reader. One major component that I learned about this genre is how constricting the word list is, but also how important it is to stick to the word list. If a book strays too far away from the Dolch vocabulary list, then it is no longer an easy reader, and will frustrate rather than empower the reader. Another way that composing this book helped me to understand the genre is that it showed me that the main importance of these books is teaching reading. Yes, these books can have good stories, and pictures, but the part of the book that really matters is if the students can read the book. These books are used to help teach children how to read, and they are handcrafted in order to put the students on the path to success. That is why font, font size, and white space are so important. All of these attributes make the words easier to read, and reduce distractibility, which is crucial for a student who is just learning how to read and put together words and sentences.

The word reading lesson that I focused on is making words and is geared towards a fourth or fifth grade classroom. This lesson will explore breaking down words and the functions of root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Through accomplishing the lesson students will understand root words, prefixes, and suffixes, as well as how to create new words by adding prefixes and suffixes to root words, and finally be able to increase their vocabulary understanding by applying their new knowledge from the lesson. From this lesson students will break words into segments that they already know or understand. For instance, breaking up the word ungrateful into un-grate-ful allows the student to comprehend that the prefix “un-” means “not”. When looking at the root word, students will see that “grate” means “pleasant” or “favorable”; finally, they will understand that the suffix “-ful” means to be characterized by. Breaking ungrateful down into smaller parts allows students to realize that it means to not be appreciative of something.