Emma Johnson

January 23rd 2017

UWRT 1104-010

Lynn M. Raymond

My Literacy Narrative

My earliest and most vivid memory of how I learned to read and write would be from

Kindergarten. I can clearly remember sitting on a red plastic chair outside of my classroom door

with the assistant teacher who was sitting on a standard metal one. The teacher handed me a

small book and instructed me to read to her. The book she gave me was a short story so she could

evaluate my progress in English so far. Although I did not realize this at the time I was defiantly

below average in my reading and writing skills. I remember that day after all of the kids had

taken their turn to read for our teacher we were placed into groups.

Now looking back, I know those groups classified us into strong, average, and below

average readers and writers. These groups were how and who we learned English with for the

rest of the year, because of this our teachers were able to support and give more assistant to those

of us who needed it. Slowly and surely the extra push and support those next months earned me a

spot in the average group. From there I gained an interest in books and learning to read and write

outside of class. During first grade, my skills started to fall below average in English again.

At this point in my education my mother was not going to allow me to struggle so she

signed me up for tutoring through a program called Kumon. Originally I thought that this was the

end of the world. Homework outside of regular school homework seemed to be the worst

imaginable thing possible to my adolescent mind. Every day my mother would get home from

work she would make dinner and then we would sit down and do my Kumon packets which

consisted of readings, comprehension skills, and writing. Although at the time I took the power
 Emma Johnson

January 23rd 2017

UWRT 1104-010

Lynn M. Raymond

of extra practice for granted I still gave it one hundred percent of my effort. From then on I

continued to do Kumon until the 5th grade and never fell behind in English again.