The Importance Of Reading And Writing

Reading and writing have been in our lives and around our lives ever since the beginning of time. It is something we are naturally born into. Almost every human being has performed some type of reading or writing, whether they live in the big city, or whether they live in the woods. They have all performed some form of reading or writing in their life. It is human nature. We are born into it. I have many memories of reading and writing, though I may not be very fond of it when it concerns schoolwork, it is something I have naturally adjusted to and it somehow has made me, and probably everyone else around me as well, who we are today.

My childhood was filled with literacy and I didn’t even know it. When I was 6 years old I read books like The Cat in The Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? All of which were good books while I was growing up. These books taught me a lot when I was younger and I didn’t even realize it. I would enjoy reading them many times,as I grew older I got into heavier books. My literacy improved a lot throughout my childhood.

While my love for reading sprouted, I soon became obsessed with writing. My passion for reading only helped my writing skills to prosper. In fifth grade, I had a teacher who very well understood that reading and writing were important. Every day, we had a half an hour to write about whatever we wanted. Boy, my imagination ran wild. I often wrote fiction stories. My favorite part was when the teacher allowed us to share our stories with the whole class at the end of the week. This one activity really sparked the beginning of my love for writing.

Throughout my years of schooling, I have become ambivalent about reading and writing. I have struggled in school to make myself enjoy writing. I didn’t mind reading as much, as long as it was to my interest. It has differed throughout the years I have been in school. Some years I have enjoyed both, reading and writing, and other years I have not liked either. Getting myself to enjoy reading and writing has been quite the adventure.

Before I began elementary school, I enjoyed reading picture books, the touch and feel books and pop-up books. I loved the author Dr. Suess, because he was funny and because I loved the rhyming he did in his writing. I can remember before bed, my mom or dad would read to me until I got old enough to read myself. My mom has always enjoyed reading, if she is not reading a book, then she is reading a recipe or a magazine. My dad on the other hand, I have only seen him read one book, besides reading manuals for his tools. Reading was not a big deal in my house, all of us kids were told that we needed to read, but they did not force us to read. This brings me to Richard Rodriguez’s essay, in his household reading was not as important, but once he got to school, he realized that reading is one of the main activities. I can relate to Rodriguez because in either one of our households we weren’t told that we had to read before we did something else. Once I got to elementary school is when I realized that reading was not for me. Before school, I enjoyed reading, then once I began elementary school, I was forced to read, take tests over books, and read out loud in front of the class which made reading a chore.

Learning how to read and write was a challenging task for me as a kid. I believe I couldn’t read until the second grade and that was embarrassing. Being a slow learner made me insecure, which hindered me from building the confidence I needed to succeed and get pass identifying with having a disability. Instead, I was enrolled into a special ed class that I had to leave my regular class to attend. During my special ed class all I could think about was how I couldn’t wait to get back to my regular class so I didn’t have to tell any of my classmate where I was. Therefore, my focus unfortunately wasn’t on learning, like it should have been!

The article that I chose to reflect on is called Creating Passionate Readers, and can be found in the December 2016 issue of Voices from the Middle. This article was written by Mrs. Pernille Ripp, a seventh grade English teacher in Wisconsin. In this article, Mrs. Ripp addresses the issue of students, regardless of their age, abandoning reading for one reason or another. Based on her own personal experience in the classroom, she feels as though students tend to give up on reading altogether, and it is oftentimes up to the teacher to set an example as a role model, and show the students what it means to be a reader. Her personal methods of creating a spark in a child’s life are generally simple in concept, but the impact they have on her students can be life changing.

Moving into middle school, I expected to continue to love reading, and that was true at some points during this time. However, it was also marked with times where I loathed reading, it had become a chore. I still loved reading fiction, and my winter break in eighth grade included long readings from The Mysterious Benedict Society series; but I would struggle in attempts to really enjoy what literacy was meant to be. Reading was no longer

Growing up it became apparent to me rather quickly that reading was not an option. Whether or not I particularly enjoyed it, I was going to have to do it – for the rest of my life. It was not until half way through high school that I began to value reading and writing. Before, I saw reading and writing as more of a chore, or something that I had to do. Though now, it is something that I have more of an appreciation for. Reading and writing have become an outlet for creativity, expression, stress, and much more.

We face a dramatic decline of children's reading for enjoyment. According to a survey of US families “which carried out for children’s publisher Scholastic and managed by YouGov, found that only 51% of children said they love or like reading books for fun, compared to 58% in 2012, and 60% in 2010. In 2014, 37% of children said they like reading a little, and 12% said they did not like it at all” (Flood “Sharp Decline In Children Reading For Pleasure, Survey Finds”). So the majority of students just read what they have to read as a school assignment. As a result, children will lose the key to open the doors of knowledge, which they can find in interesting books for them and on every page they can discover a new experience. When they are forced to read a book to do homework, not because they want to read it and they are curious about it , they might forget the information immediately and not acquire the purpose of the book. Therefore, we have to figure out the main reasons

Most people I know have a love or hate relationship with reading and writing, depending on their upbringing and experiences with each. Our world revolves around college and getting a degree in order to go into the real world to get a job. The real world can be described as paying your own bills and living out on your own. We get a job to make money, which is what most of us love to make. Parents always push their kids at a younger age to start reading so when they get older their reading skills will already be well developed. If these kids hated reading in the early stages of their life, like I did, they will soon come to realize that reading is very important. I went through a long process of hating writing, then having to learn how to love it. Many people have been in the same foot steps as myself.

Although reading literature when being forced and for educational purposes has withered my once love of reading, I can still vividly remember where my love of reading began. My comfy living room couch holds my

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

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.

From an early age I loved to read. At just two years old I would beg my mother to enroll me into school. I watched as my older sister meticulously picked out her outfit each night in preparation for the next school day. At such a young age I somehow knew that this thing called “school” was the answer to something spectacular. My home was chaotic and reading became an escape and helped distract me from the unpleasant family dynamic.