Literacy has a variety of different meanings, definitions and connotations. Literacy can be interpreted within a vast number of contexts.

We live in a world of varying literacies, social ones, athletic ones, and even driving literacies. Constantly surrounded by these various literacies, how is one supposed to learn the basics of one of them? We learn through watching, listening, mimicking and coming up with our own personal literacy definitions. My journey was for the most simplistic and probably most defined sort of literacy: reading. For most people reading is a skill developed over time. We start learning in pre k or kindergarten and continue developing our literary and analytical skills. For me leaning to read was a challenging and often frustrating task. My first grade teacher was a strict and often irritable lady. Mrs. Bunting had thick curly gray hair piled on top of her head, a large round face with small staring eyes, and she always wore long sleeve plain shirts with khaki or black pants every day. She never thought twice about criticizing someones pronunciation or forcing someone to read in front of the class. Her main goal throughout the entire year was to make sure everyone could pass the dreaded end of year reading and writing comprehension test. She had little concern for those of us who were falling behind; she continued to move on with new material racing to get through the curriculum so we could all supposedly pass this super important exam. While my teacher sped through the material I sat in the back of the class confused about the material, intimidated by my teacher and classmates and scared out my mind that I would be called on to read next. I was convinced my teacher enjoyed listening to me struggle through sentences. As I read out loud I spoke softly, in fear that I would mispronounce words. I was constantly yelled at to speak up and that yelled at again when my pronunciation was off. I came

home crying nearly every day and my mom continuously called the school to complain, but Mrs. Bunting had tenure and no principal was eager to get rid of her. It wasnt until a few months into my struggle that I discovered a wonderful tutor who I called Miss Carrie. She was a graduate student at ECU, where both of my parents worked; she was an English major and was looking to get involved in the Greenville community. She could not have been over 53 and had a petite figure. She looked closer to sixteen than 23. Her dark brown straight hair was cut right at her shoulders and her bright blue eyes always lit up as I began to improve in my reading ability. Together we would go to the library, sit right in the middle of the fiction section and read book after book. The more I read with her the more I started to see my confidence grow. I started off with the adorable Frog and Toad series. These semi chapter books helped me to gain confidence in my intelligence and in my ability to read longer and harder books. Miss Carrie taught me how to put sentences together, how to grasp the main idea of a paragraph and how to read out loud without fear of being judged. She helped me jump from picture books to chapter books and eventually introduced me to my favorite series: The Boxcar Children. Throughout the first grade I learned the literacy of literacy. I learned how to read, analyze and write and became literate in the generic sense. Learning how to read and write may be the most topical and easily accessible definition of literacy; however, for me it was a teaching and learning process that took far more effort than that of other literacies. Learning social, athletic and behavioral literacies came easy to me, but the literacy of putting words together and gaining confidence in my reading and writing abilities was an entirely different task. Though I came away with gratefulness for literacy, the fight to gain this literacy was much harder than I first expected. Along with all my other classmates I took and passed the reading comprehension exam

and moved along to the more advanced second grade reading. Ironically Mrs. Bunting retired at the end of the school year, her leaving took away a presence of judgment and lack of confidence. I felt that I was able to go into second grade a completely literate individual without the weight and terror of first grade dragging behind me. Learning the literacy of reading and writing also taught me a literacy of life. You cant always change your surroundings, but you can always work to better yourself. Through this experience I not only gained reading and writing literacy, but also the literacy of school life. Learning to read did wonders for my confidence as I began to shine academically in third grade. This struggle in the end made me stronger and brought me greater understanding than if reading had come easy to me.