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. As young girl I growing up I do not remember my parents or brother reading just for the enjoyment. The only parent I would ever see reading anything was my father and usually that would be the bible because he would have a lesson to teach at church. My mother till this day I have yet to see her read a book period. Do not get me wrong my mother does know how to read but does not find it enjoying at all therefore if it not a necessity she refuses to do it. And there is my brother, who I would see reading but that was only because he had a book report to complete. I also remember as young girl learning how to read and my favorite book that I could quote word for word was “Green Eggs and Ham” by Dr.Suess. I loved that book so much I still have that today. As I got older my love for reading and books started to diminish, I went to a private school for my elementary years and their curriculum was very intense. It was required to read a book from their approved list and complete a book report each summer before the school year began. Not to mention the numerous books reports I would have to complete during the school. At an early age books and reading was something I had to do and not what I wanted to do. Reading and books became a real struggle for me from elementary all the way to high school because I found it hard to comprehend the books that I was made to read. These books were not interesting to me and I found myself starring at pages for hours at a time and would not know or understand what I read. As I mentioned earlier all my experience with books and reading were not bad. I was in middle school when I read two books that I really captivated my attention. One was a biography of Harriet Tubman and the story of the Underground Railroad. I admired Harriet Tubman for her selfness and dedication to freeing slaves.
Each year as I grow old, I tend to discover and learn new things about myself as a person as well as a reader, writer and a student as a whole. My educational journey so far has been pretty interesting and full of surprises. Back in Bangladesh where I studied until high school, my interest for learning, reading or writing was so very different compared to how it has become over the years. I could relate those learning days to Richard Rodriquez’s essay “The lonely Good Company of Books”. In the essay the author says, “Friends? Reading was, at best, only a chore.”(Rodriguez, page 294). During those days I sure did feel like reading was a chore for me and how I was unable to focus and I could never understand what all those jumbled up words ever meant. It was quite a struggle for me in class when the teachers used to assign us reading homework. I felt like reading a book was more difficult or painful than trying to move a mountain. Just like how moving a mountain is impossible, trying to find an interest in reading was
My reading experience in junior-high and first three years of high school were not so much different. I had never been enthusiastic to read about predetermined topics assigned by my teacher and they continued to assign predetermined reading topics that made me feel frustrated and at times uncomfortable. But there was positivity that came out of these repulsive and devastating books, such as Lord of The Flies by William Golding or The Night by Elie Wiesel. Lord of the Flies caused me to confirm that humans must have rules and a government to help
Instead of mom reading children’s books to me, I read them to her. And if I stumbled upon something I didn’t know or understand, mom helped me out! Soon enough I started reading to her without stuttering of not knowing how to say a word. I started being able to sound out words easier and my fluency became much better than before. First grade came around and I started reading bigger books such as Junie B. Jones and also the Magic Treehouse books. Books became easier to read as I aged and the books I read were getting bigger and bigger. In 5th and 6th grade I read The Red Pyramid, The Throne of Fire, and The Serpents Shadow, a trilogy called The Kane Chronicles written by Rick Riordan. I thought these three books were the greatest three books ever written! I even thought they were better than the hunger games! Especially with the series being based around Egyptian gods and theology, and also managed to tie in kids around my age that I could relate to. Those books made me love reading more than I ever have and I would read them again if I had the time to. Once 8th grade came out along I decided to read a “big boy” book: DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. I thought I was so cool because I was reading a book that my parents have read. It has been the best book I have yet to read so far because it sparked my interest from the first sentence, to the last, there was intense suspense throughout the whole book and I could nonstop
My parents have always stressed the importance of reading. Throughout my whole life, they have motivated me to read and they have encouraged me to find books that I find interesting to read. Because of their encouragement, I am an avid reader today. When I was a child, just starting to enjoy reading I liked to read books that were fiction. Some of my favorite books to read as a child are series that I still love today and I think I still have every book in each series stored in my attic. They are The Boxcar Children, Junie B. Jones, and The Magic Tree House.
As a child, I have always been fond of reading books. My mother would read to me every single night before I went to bed and sometimes throughout the day. It was the most exciting time of the day when she would open the cabinet, with what seemed to be hundreds of feet tall, of endless books to choose from. When she read to me, I wanted nothing more than to read just like her. Together, we worked on reading every chance we had. Eventually I got better at reading alone and could not put a book down. Instead of playing outside with my brothers during the Summer, I would stay inside in complete silence and just read. I remember going to the library with my mom on Saturdays, and staying the entire day. I looked forward to it each and every week.
My dad taught me that books could be my teachers, my mom taught me that our backyard could be my classroom, and my sister showed me that you could bring books into the swimming pool. I did not know it when I would spend hours in the pool reading a book that my parents weren’t encouraging it in vain, but my family life, for good reason, was centered on books. We were the planets orbiting around one sun that was the bookshelf. Little did I know that books would be the catalyst to academic success in my early life, and I owe it all to my family. Although a life with a book in your nose might seem boring, I was never bored. Living through the characters vicariously, I explored Narnia with Lucy, attended Hogwarts with Harry, and rode dragons with Eragon. Of course
Reading and writing has never been my strong suit, but it has been something I’ve learned how to cope with. My grandma would try to read me books and I would try to stay focused on the words but it was always a struggle. If it was a book with pictures I could always follow just a little better but it was still hard for me to comprehend the message. Some of the books she would read to me when I was around 2 years old were Fraggle Rock by Jim Henson and Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne. I seemed to like Winnie the Pooh better than Fraggle Rock. Fraggle Rock is a book series that has been passed down from my mother and a thing I plan to read to my children and the next generation. When it had come time for me to start trying to read the books I never could, I could look at pictures and make stuff up from the pictures but that was it.
No one could ever comprehend the hatred I had for reading- no one. Reading to me was just like being deathly ill, stuck inside, watching the neighbors play and know you couldn't join. On Monday morning I sat down in my teacher Mrs. Daniels class. I had a strange feeling reading would be an assignment coming up soon. I was dreading what I knew she was going to say next. “Class you will have 4 weeks to complete this book.” As I heard these words come out of her mouth I lowered myself into my seat like a turtle slowly going into its shell. I felt as if I was drowning and no one could save me until my life was over. Not only did I hate reading but I hated it even more when I was forced to. I thought in my head, “Why. Why make us read a dumb book that will do nothing but take away my social life.” Never did I know the book I was about to read would have such an impact
My earliest memory of being introduced to literacy is the time before elementary school, when my grandparents were reading me bedtime stories and books like Pinocchio and The Three Little Pigs. After that, I started going to school so reading and writing became part of my everyday life, and they still are. I cannot say that I am a big fan of writing and reading, like some people are. I only write when I have to, and my writing is always connected to school, however, I do not feel the same way about reading. In my free time, I like to read. I choose books which are easy going to read, books which are based on a movie or books that my friends told me to read. Also, because I am an athlete, I have to read some sports motivational
Checking out all of the ghost stories to read with my sisters during the summer was a must. Reading was so much fun and going to the library that was filled with dozens and dozens of books felt amazing. Sadly, as I got older the image I had of reading shattered. Uninteresting books that I did not understand were given to me. I started to hate reading.
Staring at the front cover, I stick my tongue out and furrow my brow at the thought of reading a book in its entirety. This is how my mind worked as a small child. Reading was not my idea of fun nor was I even comprehending what I was looking at. My parents weren’t the best students, so I always felt like it was pointless to ask for help at home. However, I did learn to read and comprehend books after I had help from an inspirational teacher. She took extra time out of her evenings to teach a child that there is more than just the alphabet arranged across pages. In “How I Learned to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass and “The Lonely, Good Company of Books” by Richard Rodriguez, they tell us their own stories about books and reading. Douglass
The first beloved books in my life were the Sesame Street Encyclopedia volumes. At three, I wasn't old enough to read them, but I always wanted to have them read to me. In fact, I memorized the ten volume set so when my parents would skip some pages I would ask them to read what they skipped. After learning to read on my own, my favorite book became the anatomy volume in the Charlie Brown Encyclopedia. Courtesy of a supermarket book offer, I was the only kindergartner who knew about fertilized egg cells. As I grew older, I continued to read largely because reading taught me so much outside of what we learned in school.
When I was younger, teachers handed out books for students to take home and read. Some of these books were not short stories, but instead, thick novels that were several hundred pages or longer. My expectations were that it was going to be a long, boring, and torturous few months trying to digest the material. Overall, I would have to say that I was right, but there were a few stories that surprised me. As an adult, my tastes and interests have changed, and I think that the struggles of the characters in some of the books I read in the past can be equated with the struggles I endured as well.
Book have been a part of my life since the beginning. My mother once told me her and our neighbor would sit together and read to me and the other woman’s baby, who was later to become my childhood best friend. I didn’t start reading Wharton and Steinbeck until much later, but we have to start somewhere.
My parents instilled a passion for reading in me even as a toddler; years later, an excellent,