When I was younger, I was told that to read is to enter a world of your imagination, a world that is entirely your own, and I believed it. After all, who was I to be someone that wouldn't want to be able to hop into a new reality whenever they picked up a bound stack of pages? Something incredibly simple held heaps of inspiration and it was so remarkable to my young self that I made a point to read anything that I could get my hands on. Whenever I was upset, when my fears came back in full force, waltzing through tragedies and gracefully dodging miseries as if I would somehow be impressed by their dexterity, reading was there. Forget plane tickets, forget the moon, the sky, the stars, there were no limits to where I could soar within the confines …show more content…
I have colleges to read up on and loads of material waiting to prepare me for those schools. Even though I crave to return to the place I once was, I'm still at the point where I have no idea how to begin the journey back to my old reading days. I do, however, know what I would like the journey to entail. I want to be able to leisurely enjoy a good novel while I wait for my dinner to be done. I would love nothing more than to kick back on a nice day and let words flow into my brain like the oxygen my lungs crave. I look eagerly to the day where I can once again read for my pleasure, not to appease someone else, not to read hours of material in order to forge an essay for admissions, or to regurgitate the facts and details on a test. I think everyone else, at some point, wants that too, because reading grows the soul. Mostly though, I think that I yearn to get back to that world of fantasy where I am free of responsibility and hard choices, where I can once again feel like a small child about to curl up with their newest library find and not a stressed teenager who is constantly worrying about college. After all, out of student loans and treehouse homes, I think that most would take the
When you read, especially fiction, you experience a broad sweep of human life. You gain access to the thoughts of others, look at history through another person’s eyes and learn from their mistakes, something that you otherwise would not be able to experience.
My achievement of becoming literate in both English and Spanish, after overcoming a myriad of obstacles distinguishes my literacy history. Writing was one of the things I didn’t like to do as a child. I always thought writing was a waste of time and that I wasn’t going to need it in life. Even though I didn’t invest much time writing, I was one of the best writers in all my classes, probably because I was very dedicated in the other subjects and I loved reading adventure books. I learned how to read and write by the age of four, since in my native country “the Dominican Republic”, kids are enrolled in school at the age of three; usually parents start their child’s education at home before that age.
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
“One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.” These were the words from one of the greatest authors of all time, Dr. Seuss, that sprouted the enjoyment of reading. I was a young lad when I first started looking at words, and although I could not understand them, I knew they had some significant meaning to them. Reading played a huge role in my life, and it all started when my mom read books to me as a baby, when I first read a book for myself, and, of course, when I was required to read at school.
Reading is an essential element in our everyday lives. What was the first thing that you learned in school? It was the ability to read. Exercising that ability by reading voluntarily keeps our minds active when we’re out of school. It is a supplement to our minds. The more you read, the more you know!
I began to read not out of entertainment but out of curiosity, for in each new book I discovered an element of real life. It is possible that I will learn more about society through literature than I ever will through personal experience. Having lived a safe, relatively sheltered life for only seventeen years, I don’t have much to offer in regards to worldly wisdom. Reading has opened doors to situations I will never encounter myself, giving me a better understanding of others and their situations. Through books, I’ve escaped from slavery, been tried for murder, and lived through the Cambodian genocide. I’ve been an immigrant, permanently disabled, and faced World War II death camps. Without books, I would be a significantly more close-minded person. My perception of the world has been more significantly impacted by the experiences I've gained through literature than those I've gained
Growing up in working class family, my mom worked all the time for the living of a big family with five kids, and my dad was in re-education camp because of his association with U.S. government before 1975. My grandma was my primary guardian. “Go to study, go to read your books, read anything you like to read if you want to have a better life,” my grandma kept bouncing that phrase in my childhood. It becomes the sole rule for me to have better future. I become curious and wonder what the inside of reading and write can make my life difference. In my old days, there was no computer, no laptop, no phone…etc, to play or to spend time with, other than books. I had no other choice than read, and read and tended to dig deep in science books, math books, and chemistry books. I tended to interest in how the problem was solved. I even used my saving money to buy my own math books to read more problems and how to solve the problem. I remembered that I ended up reading the same math book as my seventh grade teacher. She used to throw the challenge questions on every quiz to pick out the brighter student. There was few students know how to solve those challenge questions. I was the one who fortunately nailed it every single time. My passion and my logic for reading and writing came to me through that experience, and also through my grandma and my mom who plant the seed in me, who want their kids to have happy and better life than they were. In my own dictionary, literacy is not just the ability to read and write, it is a strong foundation to build up the knowledge to have better life, to become who I am today.
Everyone is supposed to have a story about how he/she became the reader and writer he/she is today. For me, my story is not just about how I became an exceptional reader and writer; it is about how I became the person I am. I do not have some dark childhood story filled with depressed memories. I had a delightful childhood and cannot complain about anything that I have been through. However, I feel as if I live a life much different from all the children I knew.
It is through reading we are able to enhance our vocabulary and become more knowledgeable. Reading gets us outside ourselves and helps us realize we never stop
and I’ve been reading the same book for over a month. My reading level and skills have been decimated all due to the fact that I’ve been slacking on my reading. The book I’m actively reading, If I Stay by Gayle Forman, didn’t seem that it would catch my attention but surprisingly, it’s really good. Reading books like this one reminds me of the times of when I was in elementary school and it makes me want to read more and more.
I really enjoy reading as it helps me to widen my depth of knowledge and understand the world around me. It also helps me to gain a better perspective on life as I feel a certain sense of relaxation when I read. In addition to this sometimes I like to go for a jog or run to clear my mind and also relax; I believe that this is also good for the body and mental health. Linking to fitness I also like to go swimming and I currently attend swimming lessons to help me to become better at it
There are many different types of events that shape who we are as writers and how we view literacy. Reading and writing is viewed as a chore among a number of people because of bad experiences they had when they were first starting to read and write. In my experience reading and writing has always been something to rejoice, not renounce, and that is because I have had positive memories about them.
Have you ever wanted to meet yourself from three years ago to see how you were like? I remember exactly how I was like three years ago, and I know I’ve changed a lot. I became more mature because I get into less trouble, have better grades and have a job. I changed because I realized what was important. I changed because I didn't want to be childish anymore.
My lack of access to the real world has been completely replaced by books, and cannot be healthy to live in a land of happily ever after. Read has also introduced me to the horrors of high school and the early days and bad girls. The combination should make a very interesting first day of school. Not that I care.
Nowadays, many people think reading is not necessary, since there are so many sources of information and types of entertainment, such as TV, cinema and the Internet. I believe they are wrong because reading is very beneficial in many ways.