What I Learned In Preschool

Like many parents, mine were supportive of my learning and development at an early age and as I grew, they read to me along with other learning techniques. My mother and father read various children 's books to me in their spare time; and after I had matured some had me read along as well. The books we read together consisted of fairy tale books and short stories such as The Turtle and the Hare. Reading together helped me learn a wider variety of words and inspired myself to pursue reading at an early age on my own. When I was around the age of four or five; my mother and father bought me the leapfrog read along toy as a birthday gift. The toy came with children’s books and a pen that was used to follow along as

When I entered kindergarten my reading journey began. I was introduced to the alphabet and three-letter sight words. Then in first grade my teacher would sit down with a

On November 13, 2014 at Grossmont College’s Child Development Center, I observed Konnor who was born on March 11, 2011. At the center, there are roughly around 15 children between the ages of three and five; there is one adult for every six or so kids. The preschool center’s indoor environment is safely secured with a locked gate that separates the outside door which leads to the younger children centers and parking lot with the hallway to the learning and play area. There are two separate rooms, but they both have screen doors that lead to the same play area outside. The room on the left, which Konnor is placed in, was smaller

Thanks to hours and hours of bedtime stories, I was able to read from the age of 3. In kindergarten I read to my classmates, and by second grade I was reading series like The Boxcar Children and Trixie Belden. Books allowed me to get lost in other worlds full of adventure and excitement. My love for what words can do has extended through high school. I pride myself on my book collection, anything from Hunger Games to The Picture of Dorian Gray. I’ve continued to read all the way through high school, some books four or five times because I love them so much.

My interest in reading started at an early age, before kindergarten. I have my mom to thank for reading a book or two to me at night before bed. My mom has told me that because she was a stay at home mom before I started school, it was her main goal to teach me as much as she could by herself, before any teachers had the chance to, and that included reading a couple children’s books to me every night. My grandpa had a hand in this too; he bought me a Dick and Jane storybook and before long, I had the entire book read by myself.

“What I Learned as a Kid in Jail” is a speech given at a TEDTalk convention to a group of young men and women delivered by Ismael Nazario, a prison reform advocate where he does work for The Fortune Society, a non profit organization. Nazario was arrested when he was just under eighteen for robbery and sent directly to Rikers Island where he spent 300 days in solitary confinement, before ever being convicted of the crime. Nazario’s goal in delivering his speech to a group of younger men and women is to make them aware of the way correctional officers treat younger inmates and how inmates should be spending their time doing productive activities and understanding they do not have to go back to the life they were living. Nazario accomplished this goal by sharing personal stories from his past experiences.

Last week we wrote a blog and one of the questions was “How did you learn to read and write?”  I found this question interesting because I never had really thought about the moment when I actually learned how to read and write. My mom was the first person to expose me to reading and writing. A popular tactic she did to make sure I was staying engaged was to read aloud stories and make me follow along with her. My mom would read me many different stories like Tarzan, Bambi, Aladdin, Peter Pan, Lion King, The Jungle Book, and Hercules. whatever I wanted to listen and follow along with, she would read with me. This really helped with my want to read. The books contained a lot of adventure, which made it easy as a kid to follow along with. I became to gain an imagination and then all of a sudden reading was easier.

    As a child I was a very eager learner, I always wanted to learn new things to feed my brain. My desire to learn how to read started when I was introduced to the book, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” Since I didn't have the ability to read at that age, I would ask my mom to

Like many children, I learned to read and write around the age of five at both home and school. I learned to read by reading Dick and Jane. The writing was simple, but I loved the stories. That was always my favorite part

My literacy skills began to truly develop while sitting on an orange and blue tapestry that displayed all the continents and listening to my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Green, read an African folktale, this is when I began understanding literacy. She read slowly and pointed to every word, and used lots of enthusiasm when she showed us the pictures. She finished reading, and now we are at our desks, and singing the alphabet song.

I believe this is the best thing that could have happened to me. By the spring, I was already reading at a fifth grade level. Mrs. Littlefield was the teacher who really encouraged me to keep reading. In our first grade classroom, we had a baseball diamond. Each of the bases were set up for some type of activity to reinforce the phonics sounds we were learning. When we got to home plate, we had a reading group time with the teacher. I didn’t really care for this, because I felt I was held back waiting on others to read. I know it was beneficial to the learning process, but at the time, I would have rather read by myself. At night, I remember reading to myself out loud. My brothers would often complain because they couldn’t concentrate to read their books with me reading aloud. Fortunately my mother always came to my

I remember every morning my grandparents would read the LA Times newspaper and my grandmother would read the sales pages for the local grocery stores out loud to my grandfather. I would watch her and look at the paper as she read it off to him. I started preschool a year before everyone else my age. I started when I was 3 years old. My Mom would read to me every night. She made reading fun, she ordered personalized books where I was included as a main character. The books were from Disney and Sesame Street. Like Fredrick Douglass I also carried a book wherever I went. I would finish reading books sometimes in a day depending on the size of the

This made it possible for me to venture into new devices of learning how to read (Richter 21). One thing I would want was parents and teachers to emphasize the reading of storybooks and novels depending on the age of the child. At home, I extended time in the evening to do assignments. I also gave myself extra work, which turned out to be effective in my studies. I took advantage of the billboards in school, and in town to read whatever information was contained in them. I was brought up as a Muslim and I had to attend mosque. I sometimes had to read the Quran before I starting to pray. This meant that I had to practice reading the Quran twice a week at less. Sometimes I read fluently that I memorized myself. My love for science also contributed greatly to my learning since out of my urge to know more about the world and everything made or discovered by science, I visited various libraries.

The acts of reading and writing did not always peak my interest at a young age. As a kindergartener we were taught our alphabet, and in first grade we would have to assemble books printed out by our teacher. We were taken into the hallway in small groups and took turns reading the book. For a first grader this could either make or break their reading experience, feeling pressure from other students waiting for you to figure out a word although they may already know how to say it. In the following years I did not take much of an interest of reading. My mother often told me that I needed sit down with a book and read although it was the weekend or even summer. Writing on the other hand did not extend past tracing letters and practicing cursive until about fourth grade. Writing was very limited and was not viewed as an important subject in our curriculum.

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.