Growing Up In High School

Growing up, I was always the youngest student in my class. Since my birthday is in December, I am almost a year younger than everyone in my grade. Every. Single. Year. In elementary school, I would always get picked on for it. Hearing words such as “you wouldn’t understand this, you’re only four years old” and “you’re only a kid, you can’t do this” made me think I was not capable of adding together seven plus nine or reading books such as The Cat in the Hat. Although, what I did possess that my other classmates did not was a craving to be better than the usual standards. I was driven to prove my classmates and teachers wrong, that I did, in fact, have the same mental capabilities that everyone else had. However, there was one problem, I was

I upped my comprehension skills by reading children's books to my moms home daycare children. This automatically brought out my fun and playful side, instead of the shy, unspoken kid I was at school. I remember how excited I was to read to them when I got home from school, on snow days, and during breaks. These ecstatic children filled the room with laughter and engagement. They would be amazed at how fluently I could read. Of course, they were easy-to-read books, such as Goodnight Moon and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. They ran over to the bookcase finding other challenging stories for me to decipher. I was radiant with pride and joy to know that younger children had someone to look to and that was me. Even though they were only a few years younger than myself, I always felt superior these hyper, outspoken kids. It gave me the motivation I needed to continue reading for fun, as well as confidence me to prove my classmates

I would raise my hand in class more often and when the option was given, I would be the one to read a passage out loud. Because I kept a positive attitude and it was something I knew I was proficient in, reading became much more pleasurable for me. I started to appreciate different types of literature, such as poetry. I remember in the fourth grade my teacher introduced us to several different types of poems and each one of them became mesmerizing to me. Jack Frost's’ The Road Not Taken especially stood because limericks were one of my favorites. When I starting writing them it would feel like I was completing a puzzle because not only did the poem have to make sense, but it also had to rhyme in a certain order. After learning about all the different types of poems there were our class each created our own poetry books that captured our imaginative minds all in one special place. Learning about poetry made me appreciate reading even more because as I grew older I knew that reading would not solely consist of endless chapter books with words I could not pronounce or