Learning comes easier for some than for others. For me, thankfully, learning is unproblematic; there have been very few obstructions down my path of gaining knowledge. As a student, I sit in class, listening intently, and absorb the information. Why is that so? Why do some struggle more than others? Is it somehow connected to childhood?
As a youngster, I loved reading. I read books with the ferocity of a jungle cat, prowling the library and pouncing on books that struck my fancy. At Lincoln Trail Elementary, we had a program called Accelerated Reader, in which you would pick out a book from the library and be tested over it on the computer once you had finished reading. This became a favorite pastime of mine. I would test daily, sometimes multiple times daily, reading a book at school and then grabbing another to carry home and save for the following day.
My ravenous reading began before school, though. My mother tells me that once I learned how, I read everything I could get my tiny hands on. My personal favorites, though, were the books penned by the talented Dr. Seuss. His mastery of rhyming made me practically giddy, and I collected his books fanatically. My mother would sit and read them with me every night before bed.
But one night, I decided to read to her.
“Go on, pick a book to read,” my mother told me. I walked over to the little white shelves that housed my assortment of books. Scanning over the titles, I found my favorite one. I removed it from its other literary brethren and proceeded to walk back to the bed, where my mother lay. Next to my small bed, a nightstand held up my little white lamp, its bulb warmly lighting the room with a slightly yellow-tinted glow.
Upon seeing the book in my hands, my mother’...
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...ouldn’t exactly win, but it was a game nonetheless: I would yell out something to draw and then everyone would draw it. That simple.
I explained how to play to them and off we went.
“Draw a… cat!” I yelled, and we scribbled in our notebooks. Mine came out looking like a misshapen potato, and Mom’s looked like a passable cat, but my uncle’s was the best I had ever seen.
No matter what I called out—be it a pterodactyl, or a bicycle, or Godzilla—and no matter how hard I tried to match my uncle’s artistic prowess, the pencil in my seven-year-old hands couldn’t create such fine works of art as his.
So, I kept drawing.
I guess little moments like these have fueled my passion for just wanting to pick up a pencil and write (and draw) and read until my eyes give out. Being exposed to these things so early as a child set me up for an easier time in school than most.
My mom is In the military so when I was a child she was never really around. I was raised as a daddy's girl. Which in return meant that I was a tomboy, and I mean full blown, only wearing basketball shorts and baggy stained t-shirts every day. My life revolved around basketball and my dad, that was it. Reading was not a part of my life, I thought It was incredibly boring
When I Glanced inside the torn cardboard box that had “Family room” I discovered one of my mom’s old book named Petals on the Wind written by V. C. Andrews. While she was putting her already read books on the empty oak bookshelf, I asked her “would I be able to have this book?” Despite that it was a book above my reading level, she generally smiled and agreed. Over the years while we sat there watching television, my eyes would wonder like an antiquarian over to the old and new novels. Having my imagination running wild and wondering what type of adventures or mysteries lay inside. My family was firmly about education, with a father that was completing up his Masters and a mother who was continually reading, they both pushed us in the same direction.
“After his second-grade class created self-portraits last year, I noticed that he was the only one not hanging on the classroom wall. His teacher explained that his portrait was ‘a work in progress.’ The
When Walt was a child, drawing came very natural to him. As he grew up so did his ability to draw vivid pictures. When he w...
...” would not have been possible if my series of drawing had been created traditionally in charcoal or graphite – thus by pushing the boundaries of Oxfords definition of drawing, while still creating this work as a drawing composed of marking lines, I have sharpened an idea and enhanced my idea that nothing of me is original.
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 early writing education is mostly lost to my conscious memory, but I do think that regular reading, from a young age, of books of all sorts loomed large in that education. I remember a prose piece from sixth-grade “honors” English And Reading class called “Mutants”. It was my response to an assignment to write “a book”; about thirty handwritten pages, it was made up of two separate stories about young people with super-powers. I was at the time a huge fan of a comic book (recently popularized on film) called “The X-Men”, about a group of people born with strange powers who fought for good even though they were feared and hated by the public.
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
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.
One of my favorite childhood books is by Dr. Seuss; it is called “Are You my Mother?” Even before I learned to read myself, this book was being read to me. Thinking back to the early years of my life, I always remember someone reading to me. Every night in my house I would have one, if not both, of my parents read to me and I always looked forward to that. That is where my passion for reading began.
She would climb into bed, and my grandmother would read any book that they had, to make sure that her children would grow up literate. Therefore, my mother did the same for my siblings and I, although money was less of a problem. Every night I was engulfed in any book that was read to me. Every book was an adventure for my imagination, and I couldn’t wait until I could understand how to read the words that tauntingly sat alongside every picture. I finally learned how to do so when I reached kindergarten.
‘One of the earliest self-expressive and communicative activities children engage in is drawing. The act of drawing is spontaneous and universally enjoyed by children. As a young child proudly presents his/her squiggly lines, irregular shapes, and colour patches, how are we to make sense of them?’ (Author unknown, 2014, Pg.8)
When I was a little girl, I loved to draw. I spent my days going on adventures with my dolls and then doodling the scenarios down on paper. Drawing was amusing and it brought me true pleasure and up to age eleven, I was determined to become an artist when I grew up. One day, while I was sprawled out on the floor doodling, I mentioned my ambition to my mother. There was a moment of silence, and I stoppe...
I remember, even as far back as Kindergarten, being overcome with a need to be perfect. I’m hunched over my desk, coloring vigorously, I feel an insistent tap on my shoulder. Glancing up from my desk, a friend hovers over me, “Elly, we need you to play four square! You’re the only one who has ever gotten Kamryn out.” I want to play but I can’t. I have to finish my drawing of planet earth for a class project. This is the third week of recess I’ve spent inside sketching; my classmates finished their illustrations within two days. But mine had to be perfect. The teacher thought it was remarkable–so did my parents.
My parents instilled a passion for reading in me even as a toddler; years later, an excellent,