My Life with Literacy

What's weird for me is that I don't remember much about my early years with literacy because I think a lot of it was spent thinking I was a terrible reader and so I decided that reading books wasn't something I wanted to do for fun. I thought I was a bad reader because I was really slow especially when reading out loud. It pretty much shut me off on reading. It's kind of sad to think about because some of my earliest memories were of me sitting on my grandpa's lap trying to read Cat in the Hat and being so proud of myself when I finally accomplished it. However, I have no memories of reading with my parents. This may have been the reason why I was slow at reading--because I didn't have the practice.

Overall, throughout k-12 I would say I was a little below the average person when it came to reading for fun. It wasn't like I didn't read at all, but I just didn't have the will to read very often. I had to find an incredibly intriguing book from start to finish if I was going to finish it. However, I always did the reading what was required of me without much complaint.

I'd say the year that all changed for me was my junior year of high school. I had a teacher that everyone hated but I loved her. She encouraged us to read daily and to try out best to read all of the "classics" before college. Her approach was to give us a list of classics and let us choose one we'd like to read and write papers on them. I remember I chose Catcher and the Rye and loved it. It then made me want to read To Kill a Mockingbird during the summer just for fun. I began to realize that reading books could actually be fun and relaxing and that I needed to start exposing myself to more books.

That class also influenced my writing a great deal. I can remember after getting back our first papers my teacher had used my essay as an example of exemplary work. I felt so proud and it made me want to continue improving. However, just because she liked someone's work, doesn't mean she didn't make the paper bleed. Her red pen had correction marks all over every paper but what was different about her is that she would explain each correction so we could learn how to fix it for future papers.

After this class, I had a whole new perspective on reading and writing. I wanted to experience and do more of it especially because I felt like I had missed out on the years before. To this day, I look forward to my vacations because I know that I will get to read for fun. I love the feeling of sitting in my house, warm and cozy, and reading until I fall asleep. But what I found most throughout my years is that being a slow reader doesn't necessarily make someone a bad reader. When I become a teacher, I want to emphasize to my students that being a slow reader can be a good thing. I don't want my students to be like me and give up on reading because it becomes too long of a process. I want to show my students that reading can be fun and an enjoyable experience and so can writing.