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Ben Rogers

Professor Emilia Grant

UWRT 1103

September 3, 2014

My Literacy Journey in Four Vignettes
Before I was literate, both my parents and my sister would read to me before bed.
They would read short bedtime stories such as Goodnight Moon as well as books that my
sister enjoyed that were way above my comprehension level. I fell in love with the
bedtime stories and books that my family would read to me, and those words would
become the first words I was able to read when they were pointed to me. Goodnight
Moon became the first book I could read, whether it was from hearing it so many times,
or actually recognizing the words, it was still the first book I could read. Once I had
mastered Goodnight Moon I transitioned into another book. My fascination was with
the pictures in the books and my mother recognized this. After discovering that I was a
very visual learner, instead of reading books, my parents started using flashcards. The
flashcards became the main way I learned to read. I knew the names of the animals, food,
and illustrations on the cards, and with the help of my mom and sister, I began to learn
how to sound them out and match out a few letters. I will always remember learning that
words with the s sound more than likely had an s in the word, which helped me when
picking which word it was. This method was very helpful to me. I would find the words
on the cards that contained letters that I knew had to be in the word from the sounds, and
would then work out what letters were needed to fill in the blanks. This cycle continued
until I was able to do all the steps relatively fast! At this point, my mom would stopped
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showing me pictures and made me just read the words from the cards. This process kept
growing and evolving into simple sentences, then longer sentences, and eventually into
longer sentences with more complex words. This was the very beginning of my journey
of learning to read and write. The journey continued to change and enhance my level of
literacy especially when I entered middle school.
My mom has been in the education system since way before I was born. Her
career started off as a high school freshman English teacher, and has since taught all
grades in high school. As I am sure you can imagine, she has always been a stickler when
it came to my abilities to read and write, and being able to do it at a very high level. She
wasnt necessarily constantly shoving literacy down my throat, but it was very clear that
she expected us to do our best and become very comfortable reading and writing above
our grade level. Her background in teaching literature has always seemed to be a double
edge sword for me. All my friends thought that that meant she would help me write
papers, proofread them, and help me get great grades, but that IS NOT how it was in my
case. Yes, my mom was always willing to help me and give me ideas but my initial
question would turn into a lecture and a complete teardown of my paper. If I asked my
mom to proofread it, I would expect her to circle grammar mistakes, maybe a few change
of word suggestions, but no, I got way more than that. By the time she was done
checking for mistakes she would have found a way to inform me that everything I
wrote could be fixed in some way. At first I would be so angry. I felt like my writing was
not good enough and would contemplate ignoring her suggestions altogether, but with
time I began to realize what she was doing. She was not trying to make me feel bad about
my writing; instead, she was trying to show me how to take what I had that was decent
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and turn it into something much better. She would sit me down and go through each
sentence and explain how I could enhance them by just changing the syntax, as well as
combining some sentences to make the flow seem more natural. These nights of
proofreading turned into a complete rewrite of my paper. Many times, I would get so fed
up with her wanting to change my writing that I would give up and take a break to avoid
getting angry with her. This continued until I began to see drastic changes in the
comments and grades I received from teachers on my papers. Seeing that sitting down
with my mom, no matter how frustrating it was, helped me grow tremendously in my
writing abilities. This process of proofreading and reworking my own papers was the
peak of my journey on learning to write well-written papers. Discovering this ability I
had to write very good papers was one that I was glad I found. I am not a big fan of
writing on topics that I have been told to write on. When I am given a topic that doesnt
interest me, I find it very hard to attach myself and write a decent paper, however when I
am allowed to write on a topic that I really enjoy, I find it very, very easy to complete the
paper, and usually go beyond the required writings just to get my points across.
Reading is one thing that has always been a struggle for me, not necessarily my
ability to read, but the fact that I just hate doing it. Again, having an English and
Literature teacher as a mom, I felt like I needed to be able to read well, and enjoy it in the
process. In the school I grew up in, we were required to participate in a program called
Accelerated Reading (AR) which consisted of taking a test at the beginning of the year
to determine your reading level and how many points you should earn each nine weeks.
This information was then posted on a wall in your classroom. Throughout the school
year you would read books you chose and would take a test after the book to determine
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how many points you would get depending on your ability to comprehend the context and
answer questions. The trick was, smaller, simpler books were worth very few points
when larger, more complex books were worth a lot more points. This system of requiring
the students to read brought out another aspect of my reading ability. I am very good and
reading, and can read very fast with good comprehension. However, I can only do such
on books that I choose, or books that I can connect with due to their contents. Mystery
and adventure books really interested me causing me to read almost every single book in
the series The Magic Tree House. I could read these books for days, due to the fact that I
really enjoyed the story that went with each one. This series of books gradually enhanced
my reading abilities as I read them so often. At the very beginning, it would take me a
few days to read the books, with the help of my mom or dad. By the end of the year I
could read the whole book on my own, in less than a day! Again, just like writing, I hated
reading when it doesnt pertain to something that has a very big interest in my life.
Throughout the rest of grade school I kept the same mentality, and only enjoyed reading
books that interested me.
Literacy as a whole is one thing that we all take for granted in one way or another.
We dont think about all the things that reading and writing allows us to do in our every-
day lives. During the beginning of my second semester of junior year in high school, I
became very sick which was later discovered to be an infection in the brain causing
cerebellitis: swelling in a very crucial part of the brain. The symptoms of the swelling
included me losing the ability to read, write, and speak with ease for a period of about
four months. When I attempted to read, it felt as if I was reading ancient, non-existent
script. I lost motor skills that prevented me from writing any type of words. I also lost the
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ability to form words to speak. Losing these physical abilities made me feel as if I were
illiterate. It opened my eyes into the world of those that have never been taught to read
and write. This period of time really allowed me to appreciate the things in life that come
with reading and writing. From the time I fully recovered, reading has become a hobby of
mine that I really enjoy. It changed my whole perspective on literacy and how much we
use it for the simplest of activities.