Raines 1

Megan Raines

Instructor Pinkerton

English 1510

1 February 2019

The Struggle of Speaking on Reading and Writing

My journey to literacy started out just like many other, I was about the age of two first

when my family introduced me to coloring. Eventually, this coloring would lead to my family

members to attempt to teach me how to spell my own name. I remember thinking that it was the

greatest thing when someone would come over to me while I was coloring and ask me to spell

my name. I would grab the crayon and draw a few lines that looked like they connected with

each other to spell a word that looked something like my name. After learning how to spell my

own name, I wanted to know how to spell everyone else’s name. This then led to me wanting to

learn how to spell everything. Any word that my parents would say that stuck out to me, I

wanted to know how to spell. Once I increased my spelling vocabulary, I began learning how to

read.

A few short years later, my parents enrolled me into kindergarten at this elementary

school just down the road from my house. I was so excited to start school and make new friends.

However, this is when I began to struggle with my reading and writing skills. I remember myself

and a few other students, one at a time, having to sit down across from our teacher with a book

placed in front of us. The teacher would then ask me to read the book in front of me aloud to her.

I remember reading the book to the best of my ability, but still struggling to read the words on

the page because of my nervousness. Finally, my teacher asked me to stop reading and I could
 Raines 2

not wait to just get back into the classroom and finish whatever craft I had been working on for

the day. It was only a week later that I was pulled out of the classroom again, not to meet with

the teacher but instead the speech therapist. The speech therapist sat me down across from her

and asked me to read a different book aloud this time. I read the book as she had asked and then

was sent back to my classroom to continue going on about my day again.

Once about a month had pasted since I had worked with the speech therapist, my mom

and dad came to me to explain what was going to happen next. They explained that this “speech

teacher”, as I would begin to call her, would take me out of class every Tuesday and Thursday

and work with me on how to properly pronounce certain letters and words. At the time, I did not

know what this meant, but I was beginning to worry that there was something wrong with me. I

began working with my speech teacher at school on certain letters of the alphabet and learning

where to properly place my teeth and my tongue. I would then take more speech homework that I

was given for the day home and work with my parents on it. The more I went to speech class and

the more I worked with my parents on my speech, the more I became self-conscious about

talking and reading aloud. I was becoming a very shy girl at a very young age. I would

eventually be known as the girl who never said anything.

Years went by, I was still meeting with my speech teacher twice a week and still doing

the same homework that she had been sending home with me to work on and practice. I felt like I

was not progressing and began to feel hopeless. I hated reading of any sorts by the third grade,

and I hated it when a teacher would call my name to read a piece of text aloud to the class.

Whenever I would begin to read something aloud, I remember how nervous and shaky I would

get because I worried that other kids or adults would not be able to clearly understand what I was

saying or that there was something wrong with me. Due to my nervousness, I would begin to
 Raines 3

stutter when I would read something, just to make sure that it was heard clearly. Eventually, this

ended up creating even more obstacles in the future, that I still have to attempt to overcome

today.

Fourth grade is when I finally began to see a change in my speech impediment. I was still

attending my speech classes twice a week. By this time, I has already learned how to properly

say each letter that I could not pronounce properly before, and now it was time for me to start

using it in the “real world” and outside of classroom and the homework that I had been doing. I

remember one day while I was talking and trying to use “proper” speaking techniques, my sister

stopped me to told me that I need “stop talking differently”, and I began crying. At this point, I

did not know what way of speaking the “proper” way was to talk. Eventually, my mom sat down

with me and explained to me that it was okay to practice my speech techniques outside of school

and the homework that I was doing. She encouraged me to practice everywhere, all the time and

would even have me repeat things if they were not said correctly. I worked on it so much that

sometimes I did not even realize I was doing it.

The first week of fifth grade rolled around, and my parents had met with my fifth-grade

teacher and my speech teacher, as they did with every new teacher at the beginning of each

school year, to discuss what the plan was for my speech classes that year. When my fifth-grade

teacher found out that I was still in speech classes, she was actually very surprised at first. She

did not even notice that I had had a speech impediment in the past. As both teachers discussed

with my parents the idea of me continuing classes, they all came to the conclusion that they were

going to slowly take me out of the classes and readjust me to being in class and participating full

time. I began the year by only going to my speech classes once a week and after about two

months, I finished my speech classes all together. I noticed that my fifth-grade teacher would call
 Raines 4

on me more than others in class to read pieces of text aloud, because she had heard about how

quiet I used to be. I was very nervous at first because I was not used to this much participation,

but the more I did it, the more confidence I noticed I would gain. I noticed that I would raise my

hand more to answer questions and to read things aloud to the class. I was gaining more self-

confidence that I had lacked so of much of before.

Throughout my entire career in elementary school, I still struggled with reading because

my speech impediment put me so far behind all of the other children. Thanks to the help of my

parents, teachers, and my speech teacher for pushing me past my limits and believing in me,

when I lacked so much confidence in myself, I was able to push past this speech impediment and

overcome it. From there, I could work on my reading and writing skills and pushing myself. I

tried reading books, but I would find myself always getting distracted because of my lack of

interest in the book. Eventually, a friend recommended comic books to me. Not just any comic

books, cat comic books. I began trying to read these comic books and found myself drawn in

immediately. I then moved to other books and eventually started figuring out what type of books

I actually enjoyed reading. I remember finding myself absorb in some of these books to the point

that I would stay up all hours of the night just to know what was going to happened next.

High school rolled around the corner, my English teachers were challenging more than I

had ever been challenged. They were assigning books to be read that not many of us found to be

very interesting. I began to doubt myself again because I did not think I was ready or even

capable that I could reach my teachers’ expectations, but to my surprise I exceeded them. My

teachers began giving me more advice to make my writings even better and challenged me to go

out and read even more difficult pieces of literature than what they had been giving me. I had at

this point, exceeded my own expectations with my reading and writing skills.
 Raines 5

Years go by, now I am in college looking back at how that obstacle of a speech

impediment has changed my life in so many ways. This obstacle has showed me at such a young

age that practice really does make perfect, and that you have to hard work for the things you

want in life. I have also learned through this experience that I have to believe in myself. By

believing in myself, nothing can get in my way of my goals. However, I still find myself

struggling to enjoy reading and writing as much as some people do and lacking confidence at

times, but I just turn it into another challenge or obstacle in my life for me to overcome. Reading

and writing are skills that I am going to need for the rest of my life, and it will be help me exceed

in my future endeavors.