The Most Punctual Recollections Of My Life

Literacy memories and events began at a young age for me, and while teachers and family members all impacted my opinions and preferences for reading, every book I read and writing assignment given to me helped me form my literacy story and come to enjoy reading. Many literacy moments came from when I was young, like my mom or dad reading to me before bed or teachers reading to me at school their favorite books. All of these memories were accompanied by everyone saying how great reading was, and for a while I didn’t believe them. I had so many forced experiences with reading that it was almost painful for me to pick up a book. But as time went on and the reading I was still forced to do intensified, a better relationship with reading and writing

I don’t remember learning to read. When I think back to when I was little, I can always remember reading. I don’t remember learning letters or having trouble with sight words. When other classmates were learning how to read in kindergarten, I was busy reading Junie B. Jones.

Ron Padgett, the author of Creative Reading, recalls how he learned to read and write as though these things happened yesterday. Like Padgett, I tried recalling my reading and writing history.

During adolescence, I began reading and writing through a fundamental learning program called, "Hooked on Phonics." This program consisted of long hours spent reading short novels and writing

During adolescence, I began reading and writing through a fundamental learning program called, "Hooked on Phonics." This program consisted of long hours spent reading short novels and writing

Sitting on a colorful blanket and listening to my mom read books from Disney was my first memory of learning how to read. She could read word by word, making those face expressions that used to make me feel excited and of course she would show off the pictures. She finished reading and then she gave me a little purple notebook, where I used to practice how to spell my name and practicing the alphabet. Those are the first memories I have about learning how to read and write.

As I reflect on my childhood, the first memory of literacy I recall is when I was in kindergarten. I was approaching the end of the school year when my mother revealed to me my teacher was considering keeping me in kindergarten for another year. I was extremely upset and felt as if I had failed my first year of school. I felt that I was fresh out of the gate and already defective. My perception as a child was that the adults were already giving up on me. The teacher stated if I could learn the alphabet by the end of the school year I could continue ahead to the 1st grade. The conclusion of Kindergarten was vastly approaching. My mother constructed flash cards to help with my letter recognition. In doing so, she realized I could not see the letters. My mother promptly made an appointment for me to visit an Optometrist to evaluate me. Before I knew it, I was fitted with a big plastic pair of glasses. My world became much clearer after that. My mother was upset that my teacher did not recognize the problem, and that I never spoke up. Fortunately, I passed kindergarten with a lot of hard work from my parents, teacher, and I.

In elementary I had terrible handwriting and spelling, I got lectured about it frequently. My dad would say "you should work on your handwriting it 's going to count when you go to jr. high and high school", little did he know that it was the age of the computers and would rarely ever have to a hand write a paper.

I remember that when I was young, I would pretend to read, and I would have memorized the book, so I could recite it. I would be reading it upside down, and flipping the pages in the wrong direction. Then when I actually learned to read, I would read forwards every other line, since I just went straight down and kept reading in the other direction. I would also read the words backwards, so they would all sound like meaningless jumbles, which I thought they were. Although some of them were meaningless jumbles, like with Dr. Seuss

At a very young age I had a hard time learning how to read and write. We didn't find out why till kindergarten when I took a test and scored positive for having dyslexia. Ever since that day teachers have worked with me to learn and understand english.

When I was around three years old, my mother stressed about the importance of being able to read. I remember not wanting to learn about the vowel and consonant sounds with her because she made it into a chore to sing my alphabets. I was home-schooled, so I grew up studying on my own. Before, my mom would be assigning me the homework. I never understood the books that I was told to read, so what I did was flipped to the back of the book for the answers. I became very good at it to the point that I noticed the answer for all the questions was, “Answer may vary.” I did not know what it meant, but I do know that it was the answer. When my mom checked on my work, she wasn’t happy.

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.

Every child learns differently; some learn easily, and some have difficulty processing the information that is given to them. My parents taught me the basics of reading and writing, they bought me books and letter blocks to form words with. In my experience, it was easy for me to learn how to read, although, my struggles began with writing. I can not put the blame on my teachers, although, they weren’t much help either. That was until I entered Middle School, my sixth grade English teacher changed my whole perspective of the subject.

"Taylor why can't you read this. This is so easy," I remember my younger sister Ashley saying to me. My path to literacy started in Kindergarten when I struggled to learn how to read. We had just moved from Kennewick, WA to Denver, CO a couple weeks before my first day of kindergarten. I had always been into playing school with my two sisters and pretending I was the nerd that knew everything when it came to reading and math. The real shock came to me when I started Kindergarten and everyone could read but me. I felt stupid. I would come home and try and do my reading homework with my mom and my three year old sister could read things that I couldn’t. I tried my absolute hardest at school and I just couldn't read. I could do everything else such as adding and subtracting and could even writing my name 26 times in a minute but it felt impossible for me to be able to read.

With most things in life, practice makes perfect, or at least close to perfect. Whenever an individual is introduced to a new way of doing something, it is expected that they struggle a bit, before fully understanding how to do it. This concept can be applied to various parts of my life, but most importantly, my education. In my first semester of college, I was in English Composition 101. Not having a teacher that was focused on interacting with the students and walking me through the writing process really had a negative impact on my learning. I had never been asked to write an analysis paper prior to that class and when expected to do so, you could say I fumbled the ball quite a few times. As this course came to an end, my ignorant teen