My literacy journey has been going full speed since I was able to comprehend the words that my parents spoke to me. Growing up I was a swift learner, so the concepts of reading, writing, and spelling came quick to me. My perfectionist tendencies assisted me in my motivation to learn to words, how to spell them, and how to use them. My parents took notice of my accelerated learning ability, so they pushed it fully. Going to the library was a fun activity that usually occurred once or twice a week, where I was encouraged to explore all of the books and figure out what I liked the most.
They would challenge me by assisting me in figuring out things on my own, instead of babying me through everything that I found confusing. I was that little kid who thought it was cool if I was able to use a “grown-up” word in the place of the basic term. For example, I broke my collarbone in first grade, when I learned that it was called a clavicle I thought I was the smartest human alive. I was taught some basic writing skills early on, but I never have been a huge fan of it. Writing has never been something that I have done for pleasure whatsoever. My mother has always been a major influence of y learning throughout my whole life.
When I was little, she used to put me in her lap and read to me every single night. Whenever I was in the car seat running errands with her, she would have me practice the alphabet or read to her. I became familiar with words and how they worked together fairly quickly. She would take my brother and I to the library very often, where we were free to pick out as many books as we liked. We would take turns reading pages out loud to each other at night before bed. My brother used to love reading mystery stories such as The Hardy Boys series, which influenced me to become nterested too.
Like many other kids, my older brother has always been a role model to me. I strived to be just like him in whatever ways I could. After my family would eat dinner, occasionally my mom would get these big laminated sheets and sit down with me at the table. She would help me practice writing letters, my name, and anything else that I felt like trying. My parents have always been my biggest fans with the highest expectations not only academically, but in everything that I do. Every night we would review the weekly vocabulary and spelling words that I had been given at the beginning of each week, and ur combined efforts tended to paid off.
I never missed a single word on any spelling test that I ever took throughout elementary school. I consider my parents to be an absolute blessing, because they are the reason I have turned out to be as successful as I am today. My attitude towards reading has been a rollercoaster. I used to love reading when there wasn’t a lot of pressure or strict deadlines involved. I also liked being able to choose what I read, whenever I wanted to read it. Early on in elementary school I was free to choose whatever I pleased, and that caused me to become interested in some series of books.
Soon enough the relaxing fun turned into stressful reading with deadlines, which turned my attitude about reading upside down. I tend to have a negative attitude towards old literature that is difficult to read because it feels like it turns reading into a mind taxing challenge. I prefer to be able to comprehend something the first time I read it, and for the text to be in the normal language that is used in our modern times. That being said, I have a positive attitude about reading things that I am interested in knowing more about. For example, I thoroughly enjoy reading articles about college, engineering, or technology.
Anytime I receive some kind of college pamphlet in the mail or come across an interesting article about some upcoming device, I will almost immediately stop everything to read about it. I also appreciate action-packed novels set in post-apocalyptic scenarios where characters must overcome some form of supreme control such as The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner. In my opinion, anything that I enjoy learning about or that is exciting to me is worth reading. Writing has always been something that I have dreaded for as long as I can remember. I found that learning to write was such a tedious, boring task to do.
I always disliked all of the specific rules and regulations that teachers required of us to implement into our writing, and I never felt free while doing it. We had to have a set amount of paragraphs with a set number of sentences in each and so much more. In fact, I had a teacher that set up templates for us to use where every single sentence of an entire paper had to be followed to her exact specification. My absurdly tiny attention span doesn’t encourage me to be an enthusiastic writer either, and I would much rather be playing a sport or hanging out with my friends than sitting there with a pen and a sheet of paper.
Some people use writing as an outlet for their emotion, so they keep journals to document parts of their lives. However, this has never been the case for me, and I usually choose to bottle up my emotions or actually talk to another person about what’s on my mind. Although, there is still hope for my hostility towards writing. School has typically been my sponsor for writing related things, and this new English class has opened up a new door for writing opportunity, as we have recently been informed that all of those annoying rules that teachers used to fret over don’t matter anymore.
I am hoping to get rid of my negativity towards writing, and use this new opportunity as a way to come to love it. We’re finally being told, “it’s okay, you can write however you want and as much as you want, as long you get your point across,” and it is the most refreshing thing that a student worn down by regulations can hear. As I am continued to be encouraged by the caring sponsors in my life, I will continue to strive to be the best that I can be. I’m always trying to grow as a person and a student, and I hope that learning to appreciate all reading and writing becomes will become a characteristic of ine in the near future.
I’ve been blessed to be constantly surrounded by constructive influences that are eager to assist me in all aspects of my life, especially educationally. I hope that my reading and writing skills may surpass far beyond what I ever thought they could, and that I can be a positive and helpful influence to my peers as well. I’m looking forward to the opportunities of exploring new types of reading and writing material, so thatI might gain knowledge and improve myself for the future. My goal is to be prepared for whatever literacy challenges I may come across.
