The Importance Of Reading And Writing

If you couldn’t read or write, how would you tackle your daily life? Being literate is a crucial part of everyone’s life; reading and writing are essential for a person’s success. Every single day, it’s used, whether it’s for an Advanced Placement Language class or reading a billboard as you’re driving past. As a child, I grew up reading on a daily basis and I believe that I am as successful as I am on behalf of it. Countless memories have been created, thanks to the multiple books that have been read and the umpteen amount of papers that I’ve written. Throughout the numerous years of my education, my teachers and parents left a long lasting impact on my reading and writing skills.

Literacy is not only knowing how to read and write. I believe it is much more than that. Being literate is more or less being knowledgeable in a specific area. That being said, it is hard to understand anything without first knowing how to read and write and that is why it's so important. I do not believe anyone knows their purpose in life if they are not literate in some area of life.

Reading and writing are two of the most important tools in my life, because without them I would not have an education. They form the basis of a class; for example, completing a lab in chemistry would not be possible without following a written lab procedure. These two skills are taught at such a young age, and as education advances students must continue to strive to reach a higher level. I can remember in elementary school, we were always pushed to reach the next reading level once we had successfully mastered the one we were on. It was always a competition for my sister and I to be at a higher level, I usually won. Even though I was excelling in reading it was the complete opposite for writing. It is something that has never come easy

I have come to realize that writing is not only writing long papers. It can include any form of written communication. After graduating high school, I knew I wanted to be an engineer. From just looking in, I expected engineers not to write often. Engineering appeared to be just science and math. While researching, I came across an article about how effective communication is for 21st century engineers. After this, I knew I would be writing on the job. Writing helps current and future engineers communicate with people of other disciplines, understand tasks, and help improve ideas.

When it comes to old memories about how I started to read and write my mind instantly takes me right back to Pre K. Pre-kindergarten was long ago. 13 years ago to be exact. Now a days I don't even remember what I ate last night, let alone accurately remember all of my first memories of reading and writing. But I do remember bits and pieces. Reading and writing growing up was always special to me because both subjects each played a significant part in my life which led me to where I am today.

As a child, I really missed out on the reading and writing train. Being raised in a house with a mother who loved literature and would read often in her free time, my father on the other hand, probably has still to this day never picked up a book in his life. Growing up, my little brother and I spent most of our time with my dad so we never learned the true art of reading and writing. Throughout high school, I spent most of my time in the pool or glued to my phone which left me still oblivious to the world of reading and writing. My life was altered my senior year and I began to cling to reading and writing as a way to escape.

From a young age, reading and writing has always been important to me. It began with a children’s book about a bumblebee my mom repeatedly read to me to make me believe anything was achievable, even a bumblebee flying. Once I learned how to read for myself, a whole new world opened up to me with every story imaginable. As TV became the prevalent pastime before and after school, reading faded to the background, a thing of the past. However, writing continued to be something I did often, especially in school, where it was introduced to me in third grade. Eventually my writing had to evolve from creative and fictional to analytical and persuasive. I had to learn new skills and essay formats, proper grammar and spelling, and no longer felt the enthusiasm I once felt with creating a story of my own. Previously, my best work came when I had the freedom to write without regulation.

As long as I can remember, writing has been a huge aspect of my life. When I write, my mood is positively affected and I am able to collect all my thoughts. I was inspired by my mother to write, and that has influenced how much passion I put into my work. Writing has been a calming experience that enables me to understand my thoughts. I have used writing to communicate and connect with others. It has helped me to create strong relationships because other people can truly understand who I am when they read what I have written. Writing was introduced to me at a young age, and it has guided me to embrace the person I am today.

Reading and writing are crucial elements every student needs to understand in order to become successful. Reading and writing are necessities for everyone, regardless of their profession. Personally, I understand math more than reading and writing; the straight-forward answers allow me to perceive the concept clearly. Despite the fact that I still receive an “A”, English is still a struggle for me. Although I find reading and writing necessary, these subjects are harder for me to understand when compared to the logicality and precision of math.

A lot of us at some point have left school or an assignment for interests that seemed to be more essential to us. Students who are involved in too many school activities are more likely to fall back on their schoolwork. For me it started happening towards the end of High School, but I never gave up on school. Although, sports and band seemed to be more important to me as I grew up, it was reading and writing that has gotten me where I am academically.

There is much more to writing than just a cognitive process. People outside of the classroom write to be able to communicate with a certain type of audience, and they do this from the knowledge they have on content and writing and basic writing skills. This probably comes very easy to someone who considers themselves a good writer. However, students who struggle with the writing process require more assistance and more profound instruction in not only skill but strategy.

Everybody has a fond memory of laying around with their parents one evening reading a book out loud, but why is it that as we grow up our love of reading slowly disappears. This made me wonder, what about schools reading and writing programs makes students dislike the subjects so much? Many people believe majority of students start to grow an exponential disliking for reading and writing once it starts being routinely assigned. Once a student enters junior high reading and writing are no longer something people want to call a hobby, although it is not in vast amounts this is where schools start making a dent on students’ enjoyment of the subjects. Now in high school this is where they start the “preparing us for college” idea as they hand students an excessive amount of papers to read and analyze, all while trying to write multiple essays. Schools ruins students’ enjoyment for reading and writing because there is no freedom, classes are all about test preparation and the homework load is too much.

My junior year of high school, I decided to take the AP Literature and writing class. This class covered a slight amount literature, but the majority of the class focused on writing. The purpose of this class was to prepare students for the AP exam. This test determined if the student can get a college credit for the class. The assignment was to write a synthesis essay, an essay that uses multiple sources to back up the original argument, using six out of the seven sources we researched in an hour and a half. The goal of the assignment was to prepare the class for timed essays during the actual AP exam. I knew ahead of time that I was not planning on taking the exam because I believed that I was not a strong writer, but my primary goal was to prove to myself that I can write an exceptional essay. Due to this experience, I developed confidence as a writer as well as a person.

My writing and reading skills have developed due to the many factors and phases that has occurred through my upbringing. There are negative effects as well as positive ones. I wasn’t fortunate enough as a child to have many books present for me to read because of my hometown, but because of my wonderful parents that wasn’t the case as I grew up. There are two main subject that I would concentrate on among many others: my parents and my environment, meaning my hometown and school I went to. There are also minor details, for example: moving to the United States from my hometown and my influential teachers.

Reading and writing are both important; you can’t have one without the other. They are skills that are increased constantly due to little things that most times are not noticed. Whether it is from a book to a poem, there will always be a way that it helps out your school performance. Reading and writing in general only helps absorb information, and enhance leisure or school related writing tasks. It has also made life itself so much easier because reading and writing are so beneficial for school and for life. How much you read and write today, will somehow affect your future job, family, position, or even your salary.