My earliest memories related to reading I can scarcely remember not being able to read. I do have one memory of looking at the cover of a paperback book. The background was yellowish-orange, and the illustration was a pen and ink drawing of a young man, climbing along some rocks and looking over his shoulder. I recall making up a story about how he was running away from someone who was trying to hurt him. Years later, I found the book: it was kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. I couldn't have been more than three or four when I saw that book for the first time. If it seems unbelievable that I could remember that far back, I think that the earliest memories I have are related to reading and, in fact, may well be due to reading. An older sister taught me to read when I was three. She made me learn the alphabet, and from there I moved on to sight words. I would learn a word and look for it in books for the rest of the day. My mother likes to talk about the day my word du jour was "the." I sat in the middle of the kitchen floor while she tried to make supper, pointing out one "the" after another, and each time she bent down and admired it. I don't recall when it all came together for me, and I became a reader. I remember Golden Books, two in particular. One was called Nurse Nancy and was about a little girl who liked to play nurse, putting Band-Aids on everyone in sight. The book originally came with a set of real Band-Aids, but by the time the book made it to me from two older sisters, the Band-Aids were long gone. What did I read? I had a huge book of fairy tales with dark and strange illustrations, all browns and golds, which I read over and over. Mr Widdle and the Sea Breeze by Jo Ann Stover Mr. Pudgins by Ruth Christoffer ...
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...own habitats and societies is like reading about an alien culture. (I don't read dog stories, though, because nine out of ten times, the damn dog dies.) I don't seem to have as much time to read as I used to, but I still manage to squeeze in quite a bit. I've started changing my habits to accommodate the lack of time; I no longer force myself to finish a book if I don't like it, and I no longer read something just because I think I "should." I've stopped worrying about all the books I'll leave unread at the end of the journey, and I'm concentrating on what is around me. I've learned to look up from the page and to see through the pages and printed words into the possibilities in the world around me and to participate in that world. Certainly, that makes the journey all the richer. References One reader's journey: A rambling by Donna Scanlon http://www.rambles.net
Throughout my childhood I was never very good at reading. It was something I always struggled with and I grew to not like reading because of this. As a child my mom and dad would read books to me before I went to bed and I always enjoyed looking at the pictures and listening. Then, as I got older my mom would have me begin to read with her out loud. I did not like this because I was not a good reader and I would get so frustrated. During this time I would struggle greatly with reading the pages fluently, I also would mix up some of the letters at times. I also struggled with comprehension, as I got older. My mom would make me read the Junie B. Jones books by myself and then I would have to tell her what happened. Most
My literacy journey began long before I had actually learned how to read or write. While recently going through baby pictures with my mother, we came across a photo of my father and I book shopping on the Logos boat, a boat that would come to my island every year that was filled with books for our purchasing. Upon looking at this picture, my mother was quite nostalgic and explained how they began my journey to literacy through experiences like this. My earliest memory of experiencing literature was as a small child. My parents would read bedtime stories to me each night before I went to bed. I vividly remember us sitting on the bed together with this big book of “365 bedtime stories for 365 days” and we read one story each day until we had
From a baby to a grade schooler, I had an extremely short attention span; therefore, the only time I enjoyed having books read to me was before bedtime. Because I was energetic, my mother was forced to lock the door while she was reading so I would not scurry out of the room. Despite my concentration issues, I enjoyed reading books with my mother. One of my favorite books was The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh because I was intrigued by the characters, especially Eeyore. When I moved on from my obsession with Winnie the Pooh, I transitioned into an obsession with frogs. My mother started reading Froggy books to me, such as Froggy Learns to Swim and Froggy Goes to School. Along with Froggy books, I took pleasure in reading Curious George and The Rainbow Fish because I was an inquisitive child who was entertained by the iridescent colors of the rainbow fish.
Humans, are they Human? The article “How Reading Makes Us More Human” by Karen Swallow Prior is a very well structured and informative article. Prior immediately grasps the reader’s attention by providing a variety of examples to support the purpose of her article.
I could say that these past experience through my school career are very significant until this day, accuse that's still my fear. Even highly emotional memories are susceptible to distortion, and one factor must be that remembering is always re-remembering. I have to admit that I'm not greatly of a reader, I read books for life changing stories or biasness financial books that can help me progress as a superior person, more stronger and it will give me guidelines how to win in life. On the other hand its way easier for me to read business books because it just flows, like its easy text for me to understand than those big words on novels. I don't have a specific example of a book but a difference between the readings I have done. My mother read to me even before I could walk or talk. One of my earliest recollections is the sound of my mother's voice, reading to me. This woman read bright, colorful picture books to me, and even though I didn't know what those curlicues on the page were, I knew the pictures were glorious, and the sound of my mother's voice made the stories magical. That is why I was an excellent student in school. I made good grades and I really liked going to school. I had great teachers who cared about me and helped me to pick up as much as I could absorb. Even in the first few months of life, children begin to experiment with language. But the ability to read and write does not develop naturally, without careful planning and instruction. To put it basically, word families are words that rhyme. That is the way I started learning how to read. Learning word families is a phonemic awareness activity that helped me see patterns in reading. This is an important skill because it allowed me to begin reading by grouping sets of letters within a word. And for the question of what sorts
Ron Padgett, the author of Creative Reading, recalls how he learned to read and write as though these things happened yesterday. Like Padgett, I tried recalling my reading and writing history.
Throughout this year, I have read many different works of early English literature. From reading these works and following the rules of Vladimir Nabokov, I have grown tremendously as a reader since the beginning of this year. From reading Alice in Wonderland to now, I have grown to appreciate literature much more. I have developed a better sense of the English language through the use of a dictionary and the difficult sentence structure of works such as the Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, Le Morte D’Arthur, and the Fairie Queene. Because of the difficult sentence structures, the different word usages, and the deeper meanings wrapped in each of these works, I have learned to reread to better my understanding of the text and to see if I missed anything the first or second time through. I have also learned to not only read a novel or poem just for its story but to look deeper into it while considering its context and purpose. By following Nabokov’s simple rules, I have become a better reader and re-reader.
Reading is a complex process that’s difficult to explain linearly. A student’s reading capabilities begin development long before entering the school setting and largely start with exposure (Solley, 2014). The first remnants of what children are able to do in terms of reading are built from their parents and other people and object around them as they’re read to, spoken to, and taken from place to place to see new things (Solley, 2014). As kids are exposed to more and more their noises quickly turn into intentional comprehensible messages and their scribbling begins to take the form of legible text as they attempt to mimic the language(s) they’re exposed to daily.
If one were to look at my varied reading habits, they would be struck by the diversity and over all unusualness of my mind’s library. I hardly remember the plot of the first book I read, but it was called Lonesome Dove. It wasn’t the actual first book I read, but I don’t really count the McGregor Readers from kindergarten. I read it in first grade because of my Grandmother’s fascination in the T.V. mini-series that was playing during the time. I wanted to be able to talk to her about it so I went to the public library that weekend and picked up a copy. Well, I actually didn’t pick it up, it was too heavy. It took me over two and a half months to read, but with the help of a dictionary and my grandma, I finally read it from cover to cover. I can’t really say that I understood it, because I don’t recall what it was about. But I do remember that it was quite an ordeal. Since then I have read many books. I enjoy fiction the best, especially those that are based on society, but have a small twist that leads to an interesting story. Some of the stories that I remember best from that early time in my life are Tales from Wayside Elementary School, Hatchet, The Godfather, and The Giver. I think that Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, is the only book that I’ve read more than once. I liked the situation that Brian was put into, lost in the wilderness, with nothing more to fend for himself with than his mind and a trusty hatchet. The adversity he faces and his undying drive are what fascinated me most. Since that time my reading habits have grown into a different style. I have usually only read what was assigned to me during the school year because that was all I had time to do, but I have always strived to put forth extra effort. For example: last year for English 3 AP we had to read an excerpt from Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. Although that we only had to read a small bit, I checked the entire book from the college library and read it all. Although the way that Franklin rambled on and on about his “Franklin Planner” was somewhat boring, the way he describe his life was pure poetry.
Memories are things that shape our feelings and what we chose work on for many, if not all, different subjects. The most affluent memory I have concerning reading was that I remember reading books such as the Eragon and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. These memories are the earliest I have of reading and because I enjoyed them so much I have been very fond of reading many different books. I cannot remember anything about reading before these books, which was sometime around the 4th grade, so the memories have influenced me to enjoy reading a more fantasy style. All of my favorite books and stories have been fantasy and I believe this to be the case because of the major influence of the Eragon books, which fascinated me, that I read early on. Before reading the fantasy genre of books I do not remember
I do not remember any time in my life, when I was not aware of books. My earliest memory is of my uncle telling me a story about a wicked dragon, which steals a treasure, and the group of heroes, who go to confront him in battle. He used to tell me this story in sequels, a small amount every week, so by the time next week came up, I would be totally waiting in anticipation. It was when I started reading myself, that I realized that he had been retelling Tolkien's "The Hobbit". To this day "The Hobbit" is one of my favorite books, I read it to bring back memories of my child hood, when I’m depressed, or when I plain don’t have anything else to read.
My relationship with books and reading has not been the greatest adventure for me thus far. I will not say that all my experience has been terrible but for the most part not that great. I know for me it started when I was little and unfortunately it has carried to my adulthood.
I can hear my heart pumping faster and faster. With every breath, it pumps a little faster. I count each person ahead of me in my roll of straight desks. Pam will read paragraph one. Carl has paragraph two and Donna will read paragraph four. That means, I will read paragraph five. I go over every word making sure I can pronounce each one correctly. I am not aware of what the others have read. My only concern is not to make a mistake. It is my turn. Yes, I made it. Wow, glad that is over! What I have described is my early reading experience in elementary school. Reading was not something you did for pleasure. Reading was something you maneuvered through making sure you didn’t explored by the bombs of vocabulary. It was not something you enjoyed.
I remember that, when being taught to read I already knew more words than I had realized. Watching my dad’s finger skim under the words as he read them had helped me subconsciously learn those words. I learned to read and write at a much more accelerated pace than my peers. I felt impatient with those who lagged behind, not realizing that not everyone had been given the same advantages as me. The moment I started to read on my own, my great aunt, a retired kindergarten teacher, would send me a box of books she had used in her classroom every year for my birthday. Throughout elementary school, when I received the box, I would bring it up to my room and practice reading all the books on my own. Being able to read on my own opened the door to a world I hadn’t been able to reach without help
Reading to children can teach them skills they’ll need throughout their entire life. Reading aloud not only enhances their skills, it also affects how the their school life is. Being read to regularly is important to maintain the skills that the child learns, the earlier a child is being read to, the more skills they acquire. Parents will benefit from reading also, it creates a bond with their child that last a lifetime. Reading aloud will introduce children to books and reading so they can eventually do it on their own. Reading to children can improve many aspects of their life.