What I Learned To Read

I like to label myself as blessed for having learned to read. Learning to read was no hassle for me. Although English is not my first language, I still learned to read English first and increase vocabulary as I grew and learned to read more and more. There was no specific book that taught me to read, there were a series of books. Not only that, I had influences from such amazing people. I was a Pakistani-American boy growing up in two worlds. I always followed my mother’s footsteps. Whatever she did, I would often do. My mother was always reading; there would always be some sort of book in her hands. She read novels, religious texts, magazines, and cookbooks; the list feels endless. Although not full of books, our home harbored several books,

I also began to realize that books are correlated with the world. Images, sentences, words all played a role in the visual world. We never saw them, but they were always there. When we spoke, when we thought, when we felt. Reading taught me to feel. Reading made me realize that there is more to reading than just looking at words. Reading connects two worlds: the visual world and the world of word. The older I grew, I gained an interest in linguists, which I still retain today. The idea of languages, scripts, and foreign things makes me shiver with delight. With the interest in reading, as well as the interest in linguistics, I believe that reading and I are like two friends walking along side each other through the journey of life. I really am thankful that I was exposed to reading at an early age. I get to experience such amazing things. This story is simple. A boy learns to read in a language foreign to his own. He did not teach himself, rather, he learned from his mother. He started at low levels of books and worked his way up. However, not only did he learn to read in English, he taught himself how to read in other languages around the world. The gift of reading as a child impacted him to teach himself more about