When my parents enrolled me in Mrs. Heard’s Kindergarten class, my heart was set on learning to read. Literacy should be a priority for everyone; it’s a basic skill that is used far more than we are consciously aware of from reading books, to articles, to even status updates. This simple fact is mind blowing in and of itself. At a certain point in our lives, we do not even really have to try to read because it becomes second nature to us. Reading my first sign and my mom’s crazy tactics turned reading into a priority, and has also changed my educational career by transforming me from a standard student to an advanced, leading student in my junior class.
One day my mom and I were driving down to see her parents so I could spend the day with
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For example: She would write my weekly spelling words down and instruct me to write each word five times in a row then move on to the next. At the beginning, this was fun, but then it became boring due to the fact that I had to do this every single day. Instead of writing each word down over and over, I would make a list and write one letter at a time. For example: C, C, C, O, O, O, W, W, W. My mom would catch me doing this and make me start all over. This was tragic because all I wanted to do was finish quickly, so I could have more play time! Turns out my mom’s insanity (because what kind of sane person would take away their child’s play time?) had a purpose. This simple task turned me into an advanced speller at an early age and later down the road, into an advanced …show more content…
Heard began sending me and my classmates home with about five books to read for homework. After school, I would go straight home and sit at my desk to read my books, complete any other homework, and also enjoy a snack during the process- a great routine I still complete to this day. This was so much fun to me and it stayed that way until my neighbors, Katelyn and Keriann Hanson, came over to play. Once I heard their knocks on the door, I would immediately put up my books and go put on my shoes to go play. My mom would make me sit back down and finish my required reading before I could even think about going out with them. She would either send the girls home telling them that I would meet them at their house later or let them come in and wait, depending on how much I had left. At the time, I didn’t like this rule at all. Before, I thought she was insane for taking away even more of my playtime, however, now that I am older, I’m so thankful for all her “insane” rules, because it has shaped me into who I am today by helping me keep my priorities
My mother didn’t have a perfect schedule set up for us, but she had certain expectations for me and my siblings. She expected us to go to school, and come back home. Unlike Shell 's neighborhood, we couldn’t have kids just playing outside because you never knew what was going on in the streets. We didn’t have the back and front yard available to us, but me and my siblings will find ways in which to keep ourselves entertained. We did become creative, but also coming from a lower class community there was always one sibling that was always doing more thinking than the
Deborah Brandt (1998) wrote “Sponsors of Literacy”, a journal where she explained her findings of the research she has done on how different people across the nation learned to read and write, born between 1900, and 1980 (p. 167). She interviewed many people that had varying forms of their literacy skills, whether it was from being poor, being rich, or just being in the wrong spot at the wrong time.
Living in the Southern United States during eighteenth century was a difficult time for African-Americans. Majority of them were slaves who received manipulation, sexual abuse and brutally whips to the spin. They were treated this way in order to stop them from gaining hope, knowledge and understanding of the world. Some African Americans managed to obtain these qualities from books and use them to escape from slavery. Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist who wrote an autobiography, from which the excerpt "Learning to Read and Write" explains how he developed literacy. In the excerpt, an African American slave banned from learning to read and write, breaks the law in an attempt to free his mind from the restricted beliefs of his master. One significant idea portrayed from Douglass's ordeal is that reading and writing is a vital skill that benefits humanity.
In this world, we are blessed with gift to fulfill our needs in community, church, and families. Children are gift from God. They are angles that were brought in to this Earth to take care and be well educated for better future. In order for children to become well-educated, they have to be successful in reading. If children cannot read words-by-words and understanding it’s meaning, they cannot achieve in other content areas such as Mathematics, Social Studies, Science, and Health. What if children can read? They can understand how to solve word problems, summarize a short story, explain history of their country, and perform science activities. Reading is very important to learn in school and at home. In school, there are effective teachers who worked hard to teach children how to decode words, sound out letters, read fluent, accuracy, and comprehend stories. But, can these effective teachers do the whole job alone? Who are the important supporters in children’s educational life? Parents played an essential role in every child’s educational life. Parents are children’s first teacher to teach them how to say words, sing songs, and counting numbers. “Parental involvement is an important factor in children’s literacy development” (Rasinski, 2003, p. 1).
My Mother slamming books across my face, screeching like a vulture and shaking her head in disappointment was my first memory of learning to read. She would read one page and then left it to me to read the next page, then we would alternate. As soon as we finished our literacy lesson, we would go straight into the math portion of our daily routine. Like Alexie, I grew up poor. “We were poor by most standards, but one of my parents usually managed to find some minimum-wage job or another.” (Page 1) My Mother was dedicated to get me the best education I could, so she would spend her hard earned money purchasing books and paper for me. Growing up, I was never the brightest kid out of the bunch. I struggled a lot with reading and writing, so my Mother made it her goal to try to push me to be the greatest in that. Similar to Alexie, I would never quit. “I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant.” (Page 7)
When I started first grade, I finally started to appreciate some of my mother’s work. At the beginning of the year, everyone had to take a reading level test, and I ranked the highest among my classmates. I flexed my reading skills before everyone. I volunteered to read during class. I read to my parents, to my grandparents, to my dog.
“Literacy—the ability to access, evaluate, and integrate information from a wide range of textual sources—is a prerequisite not only for individual educational success but for upward mobility both socially and economically,” states Sean Reardon (18). Literacy plays a significant role in civilized society. As Reardon mentioned, literacy is an important part of social and economic progression; therefore, it is unsurprising that thousands of dollars are poured into the education system each year to ensure that students can be considered literate. Reardon continues on to claim, “by third grade virtually all students can “read” in the procedural sense—they can sound out words and recognize simple words in context” (20). However,
As a child, I spent a lot of time with my parents – especially my mother. While I was in elementary school she chose to dedicate an hour of her night to help me with my homework if I needed the assistance. There were plenty of times when I chose to spend time with her simply because I enjoyed he...
so she was very strict on me at times. She never wanted me to be around the wrong
My Dad wanted to take us parasailing, and my sister and Carrie (my new step mom) wanted to go shopping. We decided to wait for a boat to pick us up in the afternoon for parasailing, and before that we would go shopping. So we went shopping until we got hungry for some lunch. Me and Tori just wanted to get fast food because we didn’t want to be late for parasailing. My dad decided to just take us to Hardee’s, but it would take us awhile to get there because we had to go to the one closest to the boat, which was about an hour away. I love long car rides, so this was the time for rolling down my window and listening to my music on my
Growing up my mother reasoned with me, asking probing questions when I had done wrong versus immediate punishment in efforts to establish trust. She encouraged autonomy and allowed me to express my feelings; this parenting style is called authoritative (Camelot, Playing Field Family
My mom started to teach me to cook so then I can take care of my wife and not burden her with cooking all the time. Every day she was cooking she had me come help her cook breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even just snacks. She wanted me to be self-reliant so I don’t have to rely on someone just like how my dad wanted me to earn my eagle award so I could be self-reliant. Her test with cooking was if I could make a meal for her that she loved (that was usually hard because I wasn’t that good when I did that) and I did it, surprisingly, but since I completed that rite of passage she moved on to teach me how to
My parents were very strict about education. They knew their children were intelligent. So if you were not doing well in school, you were playing around. I remember every time I had to read or go to the board to answer a problem, I would always make a mistake. I believe it was due to the amount of stress and possible failure. When my teacher told my parents that I was having a problem at school they thought I was just being lazy. I was immediately punished. Reading was not a wonderful activity for me.
During this time children are testing their limits. Children who don’t have autonomy and initiative as a child will grow up to be dependent. Around this age my mom told me that I was a busy body, I use to climb on everything and get into all types of products such as, baby powder. There were times when I would be doing something that I was not supposed to and I would get reprimanded for it but, there were also times that my mom would let me have the freewill to climb on furniture so I can learn the consequences that come with it. Like there was this one time when we were at home and I was climbing on some boxes after my mom told me not to but I did it anyways and I fell face first and my tooth went right threw my bottom lip. My family never shamed me for being a tomboy or never wanting to play with
Reading was never something I fussed about growing up. As a child, I loved genres of realistic fiction. I was hooked on The New Adventures of Mary Kate and Ashley, Goosebumps, The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes, Judy Moody, and especially, Zoobooks and Highlights magazines. My mother was always ready to help build my reading and writing skills. She took me to the library constantly to feed my passion for books and knowledge. I loved exploring the shelfs, organizing the books, and filling up my library cart. I tried keeping a diary in elementary school to keep track of my outings with my parents and grandparents to museums, zoos, movies, and libraries. This flash of writing enthusiasm was spun from books I read in the 4th and 5th grade that were