My earliest memory of reading comes from my K-3 class where we read simple little books at our desks with small sentences like “The horse is large” or “The chicken is red.” They were for us to practice recognizing our colors, animals and sizes. Now I know sitting in a classroom reading is not what every three-year-old was doing, but it was a Christian private school named Bethel Christian Academy that prided themselves on their early readers who would eventually grow up to skip grades and send their children to the same school in the future. My parents are big on education, so they did whatever they thought would help us advance in school, including buying the bible on CD and playing it every night while we slept. During the summer, my mother …show more content…
goal. If I reached or exceeded the goal, I was given awards like limo rides, pizza party, and early release for field day at the end of the school year. However, I did not just read whatever I picked up. If a book did not seem interesting in the first three chapters, I would give up on it and return it to the library for something different. No matter what I read, it was for my own personal enjoyment first and foremost. The Series of Unfortunate Events is still by far one of my most favorites series of books. I could not stop reading those books. Anytime I had a break, I was reading during subject changes in class, during lunch, during P.E., in between homework assignments and before and after dinner. Reading those books is what I remember most about third grade. Now, whenever I find a good series of books, like The Hunger Games, I hold on to them tight. High school was the same until my teachers started assigning summer readings and extensive assignments to go along with the readings as well as a test during the first week of school on all the readings. The only book I think I may have out right hated was the Scarlet Letter. I thought that the idea of the story was good, but the 19th century language threw me for a loop. I ended up spark noting the chapters every week. This particular incident did affect me, but not significantly, because I still enjoy reading as a leisure activity over anything physical or any activity outdoors. …show more content…
The first of our two assigned books proved my hypothesis to be true. Haroun and the Sea of Stories kept me captivated the whole way through. The development of a relationship between Haroun’s mother, Soraya, and their upstairs neighbor, Mr. Sengupta, hooked me. I love a juicy story about infidelity. Naturally, the beginning of the story poisoned me against the two infidels, and I found myself wishing their relationship nothing but unhappiness. I felt that since he had repeatedly filled her head with thoughts of her husband’s “head in the air and his feet off the ground”, they both deserved to suffer (Rushdie 19). Towards the end of the story, I made the connection that he poisoned her thoughts like Khattam Shud poisoned the sea of stories. Before Haroun was visited by Iff, the water genie, he even questioned the reasoning behind “telling stories that weren’t true” (Rushdie 20). Haroun got the opportunity to learn why on his visit to this fantasy world, his dad spoke of, turned real. In this book, there are several plays on the traditional princess rescue story which I found refreshingly funny, even though I may be borderline obsessed with the idea of being a princess and being rescued by a handsome prince. Yes, I have read a countless princess stories and imagined that I was the princess in every one of them. I often find myself looking into other
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
Summer readings from freshmen, sophomore, and junior year, and also the books we had to read during those years. Romeo and Juliet was a major book we read my freshmen year as well as Thirteen Reasons Why, and we read a few good books my sophomore year. We read The Great Gatsby, The Fault in our Stars, and Fahrenheit 451. There were reasons why we read those books, we did not just read them for fun. There is a little bit of a history lesson behind this too, and that is how literature was different in 1984 (pun intended) than it is now. Reading these books also helped with my interest in books by giving me different genera ideas that I might enjoy, but it also played a negative role because some of the parts of reading these books were boring to do. I think that both The Great Gatsby and The Fault in our Stars were good books for me and put a positive effect on my reading habits. I also liked reading these books because we usually watched a movie to go with the book, so I would read the book and try to picture everything in my mind as best as I could and then see how close my imagination can get to the movie. For example, in The Great Gatsby I tried to imagine the green light that Gatsby stares at and Gatsby’s ginormous house, or what the “Eyes of T.J. Eckleburg” look like staring down at the valley of ashes. Another example in The Fault in our Stars when Hazel and
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
I would only read books that were required for class, and even then I usually would not finish them. Reading was never something that I liked. When I got into high school, I started reading books for fun a little more than before. I was always a Harry Potter fan but since I did not like to read I only watched the movies. I remember reading those books and actually liking them. My junior year was also a time in my reading history that I remember well. As a class we were reading the Great Gatsby in time to see the movie for the midnight premier. Each day we were instructed to read up to a certain page, no further. I did not like the book at first, just like any other book I was forced to read for school. But, one night I was reading and the book got so interesting for me I could not put it down. That was the first book in along time that I enjoyed reading that was assigned to me. After my junior year, I went right back to my old ways of not reading books. My senior year I took AP English, so this required a lot of books. Thinking back to that year of school I remember finishing maybe one or two of those books. Although, I didn’t read all of those books, I still got a good grade in the class. One thing I did learn from that class about not reading all the books was reading the summaries is not good enough because, they leave out all the
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 mother always makes sure to remind me that when I was a child, she made me become a reader. Every night, she would read a book to sister and I. We were always encouraged to read reminded of how important it was to be literate. At that age, I thought that being 'literate' was just being able to read and spell your name. Later on, I discovered that literacy is so much more complex and interesting. At the age of 10, I discovered a book series titles "The Amazing Days of Abbey Hayes." The stories were written to make it seem like a young girl was documenting her every day life in a diary.Of course, being a kid, I was under the impression that the books were actually written by a girl my age and I was amazed at how smart
Many summer reading books are just uninteresting; so for me reading then became a chore that I was being forced to do. I already had a negative experience with being embarrassed while reading, so then to get one boring book after the other just solidified that reading was not enjoyable. Other than bad summer reading books I was just a very active child, I enjoyed running around and playing sports. I did not have the patience as a child to read, I always wanted to be on the go.
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
Before, I loathed reading and still do sometimes. Comprehension was something I greatly struggled with throughout school which used to deter me away from reading until I learned strategies to help. There is nothing I hate more than reading something I don’t care too like class assigned reading. Last year I was given as assigned book to read called Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and I was happy that I was forced to read it. The book was a true story about the authors own journey through the Pacific Crest Trail which
When I was younger maybe kindergarten or preschool. Reading has always been something I love books always will be my favorite gift. I literally have 40 books in my room every time I get a chance I buy a new book.
My first stage of being literate was when I learned the different names of careers such as policeman, fireman, and soon. Also my parent taught me bible verses, since they were not going to be around all the time. Like they said, “Give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he’ll be able to eat anytime.” They began teaching me the alphabet, then taught me how to read the bible verses. Even as a child, my parents gave me a duty to have a morning devotional which included song service, bible readings and prayer. I was then introduced to the short bible book stories with pictures which fascinated me as a child. So, I became more curious about getting the well known stories in the bible which would increase my vocabulary and level of comprehension.
The earliest memories I have of being read to were always positive memories. I remember in the seventh grade after lunch time, always at three in the afternoon sharp. Our teacher would gather us together in a little spot dedicated just for reading. We had some bean bags and comfortable chairs facing her ready to hear the new and exciting story she would read for us that day. I loved listening to my teacher reading us a mystery or sometimes a very funny story. Other days we could pick our own book which I loved. I remember several times been so indecisive on what to read. Every book seemed interesting and some didn’t but I was afraid I would be judging the book by its cover and would lose the good time of reading a scary or amazing story.
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.
Looking back, the one book and probably the most important was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling. My third grade teacher introduced the entire class to the story of a boy stepping foot into the wizarding world that he never knew existed. I become very attached to this story and was attracted to the characters. There was only one problem, my teacher could only read about half a chapter a day for us since we had other things to learn. As someone who is very engaged in this book, it infuriated me. That was when I decided to ask my parents for the Harry Potter books for Christmas, and that was exactly what I got. I began reading them right away and it was astonishing to most people that I could read them well since those books are very advanced for a third grader to read. I was able to read them at a pace much faster than my teacher read them to the class. This was about where my bathroom reading began. This moment in time was when my love for the Harry Potter series began and it has followed me into adulthood. It also began my love for reading a series of book rather than individual
This kept me even more devoted to my reading habits and allowed me to pursue them through middle school when I made the jump from 300-400 page books to 700-800 page novels. Middle school was my era of being obsessed with fiction books. I loved books that were recreated through movies like Harry Potter or The Hunger Games just as much as I loved books that I could relate to. However, books with a relatable factor always tended to be my favorite. This was mainly because I loved the idea of living vicariously through someone 's life. One of my favorite series is the Clique series which is about a group of popular girls navigating through high school. I started this these books in elementary school and reread them all throughout high school and though I was reading about arbitrary things like fighting over boys or crazy holiday parties the entertainment from this series possessed me to find more pleasure books. At the same time, this entertainment buzz quickly turned from a consistent means to continue to strengthen my literacy to me lugging my book to every class and reading instead of paying attention. Consequently, my teachers started to notice I was no longer listening to them and began taking my books and at first, this only fueled my stubborn nature and