Tag: narrative

My name is Jamèk Turner and I learned how to read and write in multiple ways that has benefitted me as a person and student. I first started to learn the basics to reading when my grandmother read to me just as she did with all the daycare children that she had in her in-home daycare. Then, I started to learn certain letters and words which helped in reading and writing. Learning how to trace letters and words was another tool that helped me. Reading stories and then writing a paper on it strengthened my reading writing skills. Lastly, writing informative papers over the summer before college and presenting the papers in front of friends and family helped strengthen my writing skills.

My grandmother uses to sit me down every day when I was with her and bring out the bold, foam alphabet mat where I can sit on it and point out the letters while she said the letters out to me. While she would do that I can remember the faint sound of babies crying in the background from the in-home daycare she runs in her home. I never really got a break from learning from my grandmother as she took every opportunity that was given to her to teach me something involving the alphabet, words, colors, or animals. I used to have a speech impediment, so it made teaching me to pronounce words a little more difficult than it usually would. I was ahead of my learning curve for my age. My grandmother would make pasta that would be so savory in your mouth after she taught me something new and I succeeded in learning it on the first try due to what I knew was waiting for me if I succeeded. My grandmother and I would sit on the sofa with a sippy cup in my hand and a coffee mug in hers and I would listen to her read The Cat in The Hat. That book meant a lot to me because I was so drawn in to The Cat in The Hat due to the vivid pictures and rhyming scheme that Dr. Seuss included in that book.

On some days I could smell when my grandmother made a good cheesecake, those were the days I knew that I would have some sort of break from learning a whole lot. My grandmother sat me in front of the tv with Barney, The Wiggles, Sesame Street, and Zoboomafoo on for me to learn some new and informative tools. When I would wake up in the mornings from staying over my grandparents’ house the first thing I could hear were nursery rhymes playing on the television from tapes she had. While listening to the nursery rhymes while still in bed I then could start smelling fresh pancakes being made. On some occasions my grandmother would tell me to count to ten or sing my alphabet before I could take a bite of food she made in the morning. By my grandmother drilling me on my alphabets and making sure I remember the information that I attained it helped me to remember relatively everything that she had taught me.

I would then grow old enough to attend elementary school in which I came in a little more advanced than some of the other kids in my class. The class would sit in colored boxes that were on a rugged mat on the cold floor and would sing the alphabet, listen to the teacher read stories to us and help us trace our letters properly in the My ABC Tracing Book. The activity in which I had a difficult time in was tracing my letters properly because I had bad handwriting and my grandmother rarely worked on writing letters and words with me. The harsh eyes my teacher would give me once I gave her the tracing paper back with the tracings not on the dotted line was what struck fear into my body. I would then receive extra lessons on how to trace properly and then actually write these letters and words out while the rest of the class was singing the alphabet and listening to the other teacher in the room read them a story.

Using my skills of tracing and writing learned in elementary school, when in middle and high school I had a better chance to write better when my teachers would pair us up in groups to read a story of the groups choosing, write some things you like about it and that you learned from it, and then reenact what you learned in the story to the class. I found this beneficial to me and my class because it helped us to like reading, be more confident in presenting in front of people, and it helped with our writing as well. I would read a book every day until I was finished with it whether I liked it or not I would write some interesting facts or new information or words I didn’t know from the story down, so I can look it up and go over them on my own time. By doing this it helped me be a better studier while I was in school and it helped me be more advanced in the classes I was in. I read the story To Kill a Mockingbird and I thoroughly enjoyed that story due to the vivid imagery and the suspense that I felt from reading that story. After reading the story the class had wrote a paper on the story describing how we felt about the story, how the author used certain tools to attract a certain audience and what information or new words and phrasing we took from reading the story. From writing that paper we did some peer editing and that helped me to understand some different viewpoints of the story I had not thought about beforehand.

Over the summer I trained myself to read everything I saw or received from somewhere. I eventually would just start reading the newspaper for fun after I would eat my breakfast in the morning. I did a lot of writing over the summer as well for my personal use and because my mom wanted me to keep typing up papers on some things I may learn in college or get out from college. I wrote about two different papers over the summer about what I need to accomplish as a student to get to what my future has in store for me. After writing these papers I would read them to different friends or family members, so I can build my confidence up with not only writing but presenting the reading that I had wrote at that time. I now have some sort of confidence to write papers and present the readings that I had wrote down on or typed up on the paper.

Resulting from the tools that was used to help me to learn to read and write it not only put me ahead of the learning curve a bit, but it also helped me to get up at this point of my life as a first-year college student. Having a grandmother help teach you some fundamentals such as learning your alphabet, reading to you as a child and making sure that not only are you learning the material but also retaining the information is a key moment in my life. My grandmother also sat me in front of shows that were not only fun to watch but also taught me other reading and writing properties such as certain phrases to use and how to pronounce certain letters and words. Being in a school where they teach you how to trace and write down letters and words will also help in your writing skills. Reading books as a class and then working on a paper about what you read will help with reading and writing because not only are you going in depth of what you read but you’re putting all of that onto paper or in a typed paper. Lastly, writing informative writings and presenting them in front of people on my own time helped me to be a better writer and be more comfortable with presenting the writings I generated on paper. Having multiple tools as a child helped me fundamentally with my reading and writing, some people may have other ways they learned but at the close of business we all learned some way to read and write to get to where we are today.

Becoming me!

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When a child is born they all start off at the same stage, and are capable of growing and becoming anything they want to be. However, each child’s journey will be different and that makes each and everyone of us unique. Learning to read and write are the two main steps into helping you learn because without knowing how to read or write you cant do much of anything. Learning to read and write for me was a pretty easy thing to do because of the tools I was given and the people I had to help me on my journey. If I didn’t have those basic tools helping me while I was younger then my reading and writing skills may be very different today.

Learning to read sometimes seemed like a very long and stressful task for not only me but the people trying to teach me as well. I was a pretty fast learner when it came to many things growing up. However, to start learning anything you must learn the basics of how to read. Reading is the foundation of pretty much everything you will learn how to do, so this was the first thing I learned to do. I can remember my mom starting to teach me how to read before I even got to pre-school. Without reading you wouldn’t know how to play a new game you just bought because you can’t read the instructions, or learn how to bake a cake because you can’t read the ingredients. Teaching someone to read can be a hard task because you have nothing to start with because reading is the base to everything you will learn. Learning to read for me was pretty fun however because the tools my mom used allowed me to feel like I was playing a game while I was learning to read.

The biggest tool I can remember that really made and impact on how I learned to read was interactive games. There were so many teaching games on the internet that taught you so much and allowed you still have fun to the point you didn’t even realize that you were learning. I would play the games were you would click on a picture or image and the computer would say what that item was back to you. For example, if I clicked on a picture of a four legged creature with a wagging tail and wet tongue the computer would say dog. Not only would it say dog but the word would pop up on the screen. D-O-G, the word being sounded out letter by letter so I could not only see but hear how each letter was supposed to sound and how they all came together to describe that image. From that point forward that one word allowed me to understand so many more words that I see. Since I now knew what each letter in D-O-G sounded like if I saw another word that started with the letter D I automatically knew that it would make the “Duh” sound. Even though I was learning while playing these games, I didn’t notice because I was having so much fun. All of the different colored pictures and items would grab my little attention and I could go on for hours.

Once I started school I wasn’t on the computer as much and my teachers started using their own techniques to help teach us learn to read. From pre-k through first grade I can remember flashcards becoming my new best friend. Showing us different words with the pictures right beside them was like the interactive games I played at home but it was on paper. Now I was still practicing my reading and getting familiar with the letters and how to pronounce them to create words and as the years went on and I progressed from pre-k to first grade the words became harder. I remember when it was time for our reading lesson in the first grade and my sweet teacher would stand in front of the class and with a very soft voice she would slowly sound out each word with us. We would move our mouth so dramatically to sound out every letter to create the word on the flashcard. Simple tricks like that seemed crazy looking back at it but they made a very big difference and soon after that I was able to take those words and put them together to read sentences.

Writing was the next task I learned but that can take years to master because you must learn how to create the letters on paper, put them in the correct order to make a word or sentence and then develop your own writing style. I started learning to write soon after learning how to read when I got into elementary school. It took years of practice to get to where I am today. Starting off with the basics when I was learning how to write I could very much remember the stencils of letters be given out to me in class and my teacher telling us to pick up are little wooden pencils and trace the dotted grey lines on the paper. Each day we would focus on a new letter in the alphabet, practicing the whole day how to make the big A and the small a, when to use them in a sentence, and how your pencil should move around the paper to form each and every letter.

After going through the alphabet the next step was learning how to form words. The dotted lines on the paper would have multiple letter from the alphabet that I would take my pencil and trace over to form a word and then BOOM, I was writing! Tracing the letter on the papers would seem to get boring and repetitive after a while but the more I did it the easier it became and before I knew it, I didn’t even need the dotted lines anymore. I was writing on my own. Tracing helps by not only showing you visually what the letter should look like but also allowing you to practice how your pencil will flow and glide across the paper while creating those letters. How instead of creating sharp point for the letter E you must keep everything rounded like in the letter O. How just one line can change whether you are writing the letter E or F. There are so many little things you have to pay attention to when writing. However, when you write with stencils then you can see what you are trying to create and it is harder to mess up then if you didn’t have the stencil there to help you. After using this tool I pretty much had writing down, I knew how to form letters and create words and eventually sentences.

By the third grade I was pretty good at reading and writing and the next tool I would use was working books. This tool combined my reading and writing skills together and prepared me for what I seemed like the rest of my school career would consist of, having to read something or questions then writing out the answer. Workbooks and worksheets soon went from a helpful tool to a pain. The simple and fun stories about two kids and a park and questions about the color of the slides didn’t last long. By middle school and then high school the passages weren’t as fun and became harder and the questions caused you to think a lot more and use more then what was just in the story but analysis came into play. However, it helped because it continued to build on my vocabulary and sentence structure while I was reading and then I could use those while reading and then I could take that to help with my writing as well.

My journey of learning to read and write is probably different from a lot of other people but the journey I went on allowed me to become a strong reader and write today. Because of the things I experienced and went through I was able to be put into a lot of advance classes. This helped me become more advanced and a strong student and because of that and the hard work I put into my education, I was able to get into Stevenson University and this will continue to push me one step closer to my goal of becoming a Pediatric Oncologist. To become a doctor it will be a lot of hard work and dedication and right now getting my major in nursing it will still be a long and tedious process. However, I will always remember the interactive games, flashcards, stencil books and workbooks because they helped me get to where I am today, and I will forever be grateful and continue to build on the things I already know to get me to my future career goal.

Jason Kahan

Literacy Narrative

 

My literacy journey has taken me to where I am today at Stevenson University. I started this journey with my mother reading to me when I was younger. She started with fun Dr. Seuss stories like Yertle The Turtle and Cat in the Hat. This was just for fun before I would go to bed, and it was a great time for all of us. This lead to books where I would sound out the word and form sentences. Books like Go, Dog, Go, and  Caps for Sale were among my favorites. This is where I would practice reading until I could sound out almost any simple word. Throughout elementary school I would progress and started reading books that were longer like The Magic Tree House series and A Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I would say this was the peak of my literacy career, as fifth grade was the last year my mother made me read every night. Since then I would read books, just not as often as I’ve never prioritized my reading. One of my favorite reads would have to be the Hunger Game series.  I loved the concept, but all the books in high school I never enjoyed. This lead me to dread reading for school as a whole because I hated being assigned reading. That has lead my to where I am now, where from time to time I will listen to audiobooks in my car with my father, or by myself. However, I rarely find myself sitting down and reading a book.

 

When learning to read I would always have to practice, practice, practice. My mother is an elementary school teacher, so it was installed on me when I was younger that I had to practice my reading. Whether it was doing my homework for the night, or her giving me more work to do because my teacher did not assign any. My mother cares a lot about me, and she really wanted me to master this skill at an early age. This came into my mind now writing about this because of all the time my mother made to read when it was summer time. In elementary school when we were on summer break, my mother made my sister and I read together to freshen our skills. This was very annoying to me, and despised almost every moment of it. While all my friends went about and enjoyed their summer’s I was still reading during the summer. Do not get me wrong I still had loads of free time to do what I pleased, but I thought I was just the only one who had to keep on reading during summertime.  This meant sitting down with my older sister Nicole, who was a much better reader than I was, and read my books out loud her. Every night I would mowp my way into my parents room, sit on their bed, and read out loud to my sister with my mother watching over. During those 15-20 minutes, it always seemed like the longest 15 minutes of my life. Just feeling the little paperback books make me cringe. And then hearing my mother correct me when I mispronounce a word wrong and me just getting frustrated with it.

 

My handwriting has never been anything to brag about, but nor is it so bad that people can’t read it. I don’t ever take the time to really think about it when I am writing, I am just trying to write as quick and efficient as possible. I never really take the time to think about how my handwriting is looking. When I was younger I would have to really focus as my handwriting was awful in elementary school. Teacher could not understand it and it was looking like I was falling behind as the teacher could not understand what I was trying to show. This all changed when I was introduced to this special grip which helped with handwriting. This pencil grip that slides on and off your pencil taught me how to actually hold a pencil the right way. It had three indents on it where you put your thumb, index finger, and middle finger. It forced me to hold the pencil the correct way so I could get the best out of my handwriting. I took this pencil grip everywhere I went in elementary school. Even when doing math, which I was already adapted to writing my numbers the right way, I used this pencil grip. I used this pencil grip all the way up to fourth grade where I didnt think I needed to use it anymore, but still preferred to have it on my pencil as I been so adapted to it.

 

That is how I learn to write on paper, but since we live in the 21st century we have the opportunity to use technology. I first learned how to type in my 3rd grade class, but it was a very easy and fun program where you located the letters on the keyboard. Then in 6th grade we had to take a typing class where I learned how to type faster and more efficiently. That was all for learning to type, but I used different technologies as a kid to learn. My favorite was my leapfrog which allowed me to read on it. This was helpful as it sounded out words for you and was really fun and interactive. I would take this on long car trips to Pittsburgh with my family. As I got older I matured from the leapfrog and I would play reading games on my Ipod. I forget what the app was called, but it made you read a passage and then answer questions about it for comprehension. My mother was being so strict about reading that she made me download that app and I had to do it on long car rides as well. It wasn’t very hard to do, but I would have much rather played angrybirds. Now being much older my father would just play one of his audio books for all of us to listen in the car. These I would enjoy as I could just sit back and listen rather than answering questions about it. Also it was very relaxing especially being in the car for more than six hours. These technologies really helped me progress my reading and writing skills and were for most of the time, fun doing.

 

All these tools helped me to get to where I am today in my literacy journey, but I can use these processes to better my reading in the future. Obviously I am not going to be using a pencil grip on my pencil, but I can focus on my handwriting more when turning in papers. Also I dont have my mother telling me to read every night anymore, but to better my reading I can elect about 20 minutes per day, either reading or following along with an audiobook. Another way to better my writing is doing pomodoro everyday. Also being in 2018 we have endless technologies to better reading. I could purchase a kindel which has plenty of books. There are endless options where I can better my reading, but it is up to myself to actually practice, as there is no one telling me to do it. I will read more as I want to better my comprehension and my ability to read faster.  

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My literacy journey

 

As I have embarked on my journey through high school until college the skills I have gained such as vocabulary, sentence structure, grammatical errors as well as how to write papers but still there is so much to learn. My literacy journey increased as I went from writing short stories based on my life to writing prompts to writing formulated essays. Literacy is something that has helped me advance my knowledges and hopefully my career. Starting at a young age to read and write has changed my views of the world to come.

 

As a young child around the age of 5-7 my mother would take me to the library on Northern parkway and Putty hill avenue where I got my first library card. I was so surprised and excited to finally be a apart of a club. When I first got my card I didn’t  even know what it meant let alone how to use it. Getting my first card at a young age helped me to read and write by getting me involved with the kids as well as the library staff. I got involved with the kids by attending kids group, making arts and crafts as well as library challenges. At the library I would check out at least 20 books a week even though I didn’t even know how to read or interpret information. The first book I read was recommended to me by the librarian was Junie B Jones. Junie B Jones seemed so silly when I first picked it up. I remember getting the whole first series and some more on my trip. I loved the adventures and how silly she was in the books as well as how close in age we were. I would read to my mother in the kitchen while she was cooking Sunday dinner for the family or while braiding my hair because it eased my nerves. Reading my first chapter book got me intrigued and wondering what else could possibly be out there. I read books everyday everywhere I went. In the car, on the front porch in the hot sun, riding my bike even though I always fell, in the grass, in my room, at the dining room table even though my parents told me it was rude. After reading Junie B Jones I was striving and thirsty for more books like fiction and non fiction as well as genres like  adventurous, drama and mystery. Every time I went to the library they always knew what books for my age and grade levels would appeal to me such as using the color of my shirt, my hairstyle, or seeing common themes across the books I took out. Every time I read and brought books back to the library the old lady at the counter with the missing tooth who smelled like cinnamon would always offer me a piece of peppermint or lollipop if the other kids didn’t take it. I always looked forward to my candy after reading like a reward. The next series I tackled on was the magic treehouse series which if you can believe has an unbelievable amount of books. These books took me to a fantasy world as a kid and got me to explore along with the characters wanting more.

 

During my moments at grade school my school advised the parents to help the kids both in school and outside of school by sending emails, newsletter, and especially at PTA meetings. They sent home newsletters advising parents to read with kids, tutoring services offered for reading and writing at the school as well as book fairs. Inside of school we said the alphabet everyday after announcements and rollcall. Cursive quizzes were mandatory weekly for a special letter per week and the same people bragged every week as I continuously rolled my eyes at them. I remember struggling with the end of the alphabet because of how I thought they were too squiggly or crooked looking. I remember practicing to write my name over and over with my favorite pen that smelled like strawberries. The class  used blocks and pictures on the blocks to get us to  sound them out. There were selected times where we would quiet read in a corner or a section of classroom for a half hour to an hour by ourselves. My favorite corner to read was the by the yellow, green, and blue bean bags because it was the most comfortable. At home my mother would constantly flashcard me with letters, sounds, animals, and pictures at night as we was eating dinner or just before I went to bed. My father on the other hand didn’t use flashcards he would just say a word and said say it back to me like a robot but I had a stuttering problem so it always came out jumbled up or way too fast. My stuttering problem was due to my premature birth which was supposed to impact my learnings skills but never held me back. At school we did fun activities  to learn to read and write such as painting letters during art class which was pretty messy and some boy always ended painting a girls leg. Writing our names on name tags, attending a book fair on campus, doing journal prompts every morning,  writing about nature, personal portraits of me and my family as well as many other mechanisms. My second oldest brother would play basketball with me late at night in the humid air even though I was sweating. The object of the game was to make a shot for a letter such as “b” for ball or “o” for orange and we didn’t leave until the street lights came on and you saw the foxes running across the street rapidly. My most valued person who helped me was my grandmother and grandfather who would drive as far as to Georgia to visit my family members. On our mini adventures she would make me read signs on the highway and street to her such as route 78, welcome centers and many more. The artifact she valued me most reading to her was the children’s bible because of her religion as well as it was easy to pronounce to me. Reading the children’s bible helped me advance my reading, vocabulary, sentence structure as well as connected to me to my religion of Christianity.

 

This process I encountered from an early age to middle school to high school and now college has challenged me to think critically as well learn better communication techniques to use for certain situations. The techniques I received while in grade school and high school has carried over to my college career by building upon and expanding on the previously learned topics. Writing papers and improving my language will help me in the future for internships, job interviews as well as in my major. Learning how to improve my writing will influence my future by preparing me for presenting my work in an organized and concise way to businesses.

Learning To Be Me

My name is Ryan Daunt and I’m an 18 year old college student attending Stevenson university. I spend a majority of my time either  playing lacrosse or spending, what my parents would most likely say is, an unhealthy amount of times playing video games. I was born in Chesapeake Virginia but grew up in Hightstown New jersey. Another thing that not many people know about me is I harbor a very hidden love for reading. I grew up with my head in a book any free moment I had. My mom in particular encouraged this because my other two brothers dread reading like most young kids do. For me however it played a large part in my growth and my childhood. It is hard to tell my story without including this crucial piece of information. Writing on the other hand was always a struggle. I could never quite get the ideas in my head onto the page, which always troubled me because with all the reading I felt like it shouldn’t be so  difficult. Today while I am much more confident in my ability to put meaningful words on a page and to comprehend pieces of literature and writing I still know there is much work to be done and much more for me to learn. However we are focusing on the past in this piece and for that I’m going to be talking about my childhood and early life. These are influential points in my life that I can pinpoint as turning points and growing points in my development as both a writer and reader.

From a young age my parents could tell I was a reader, or at the very least interested in stories. Every night growing up, probably as early 2 years old my mom would read to me every night, until of course it got to the point where I could read myself. I probably share a common story with many other kids here when I say that the one book I can clearly remember as being read to me over and over, begging my mom to read it again was green eggs and ham. In my developing mind it was the quintessential piece of story telling, the pinnacle of human writing performance. The first hearing of this story is permanently etched into my brain. I was sitting on my mom’s bed on a breezy fall afternoon, we had the windows open and it was starting to get late. I was snuggled up in my pajamas, laying down next to my mom when she started the story. I will never forget the first time i heard “Do you like green eggs and ham?” After that the rest was history, my journey of literature had unknowingly begun. The story was the first I can remember that captivated my mind, influenced me to want to hear a story, created emotions just by hearing and seeing words and looking back now I see this as a clear starting point in my journey towards learning and mastering writing and reading. This is what inspired me to start, the rest of the journey was learning how to actually accomplish what Dr. Seuss did in this work of art.

For me now, in such a modern age where technology dominates the classrooms and writing is done largely on computers, I’m blessed to be able to hide my horrendous handwriting from the world. Young me however did not have this luxury. Growing up my handwriting left a lot to be desired, and when the teacher brought out those purple handwriting books with the large bold outlines separated down the middle by the faint dotted line, the look of absolute disgust was most likely perfectly viewable by all. For someone who enjoyed books as much as I did, the actual writing mechanic behind such things was very difficult for me. For some reason I just could not get my small hands to follow those faint, perfectly formed letters they expected us children to replicate. This was around 2nd grade, and every couple days these books would get brought out and i’d be forced to yet again put my pencil to paper and struggled through another harsh session of writing practice. It took the whole year for me to finally be able to write legibly but in the end I did it. This struggle taught me alot, more than just learning write. I know I will never forget those purple writing books and the uncomfortable brown desks that we sat in for hours on end. While torturous at the time they gave me valuable tools that I do now appreciate. My handwriting may not be much better than it was back then but simply being able to write was one of the most important thing a kid can learn. It opened up to so much more, allowed so much more growth and getting those lessons into my head was a huge point in my childhood. One that can be traced up through everything we do today pretty much, between college and social life, writing is one of the essential things that one must be able to do.  This skill was so important because it led to development into deeper, more complex ways of writing.

The next corner stone in my life was in 5th grade english class. It was the first time us students were allowed to free write, and kind of piece we wanted. I, being in love with books at this point in my life, choose to create my own. The genre that fascinated me at this time was fantasy so this story was about as fantastical as it gets. Talking animals, wizards, superpowers and some kind of plot crammed into a 1,300 word  novel, equipped with hand drawn art and all. I don’t know where the story ever ended up, probably buried under other memorabilia my mom kept over the years but I do remember the happiness, the struggles and the hard work I put into that piece. I was so proud to have written something with my own two hands, a story created by me. I put emotions, characters, places and anything I could think of. It was a culmination of all the skills I had learned up until that point, from Dr. Seuss to writing exercises I used everything I knew in that and will never forget the happiness it brought me. It sparked a passion in me and that’s something that someone never forgets. I’ve held onto this love of reading and writing ever since.

The lessons I have learned throughout my life have molded me into the student and person i am today. Writing and reading, while they may not be something one thinks about as playing an influential part in our lives, have a lasting impact on our future. Our ability to put thoughts into words and to comprehend and understand the ideas of others are essential in creating our futures. These 3 moments in my life are things that I can look back and say with absolute certainty have played a large part in my development as a reader and writer. Whether it be teaching me the basics of the tools or expanding my passion for them, they are things have and will continue to help me throughout life. The combination of all these lessons is what makes me who I am and they will serve me well forever.

This is my second semester at Stevenson University and so far, it’s been a comfortable and easygoing start to the remainder of my degree.  Originally  from Louisiana, I moved in 2016 and went straight into Montgomery College taking a couple years to gather credits to transfer to a traditional four-year university. I looked at UMBC at first but then became more interested in Stevenson after looking at the programs they offer.  I’m generally a quiet person and pretty introverted and enjoy spending time with friends and family.  

My earliest experience of how I learned to read and write started from my mom teaching me the alphabet and numbers before pre-school.  She would sit down with me at a large round wooden table and use flashcards for the alphabet and make it into a song that was easy to remember. For numbers she also used flashcards.  These flashcards as I remember were shaped like animals and other things so it would be engaging and able to keep the attention of a three-year-old.  She also had the alphabet on the wall of the kitchen to help me as well.   

The most significant start other than books in middle school was when I was around eleven or ten years old.  My mom had introduced a book called Redwall by Brian Jacques to me on my birthday.  I was never enthusiastic about reading and had even hated reading up this point in my life.  However, this book reeled me in to adventure and excitement that I had never experienced before in a book.  I was quickly hooked to this series and read almost all in the twenty plus collection.  Looking back now the books were all the same, the classic adventure across an unknown area or land led by a protagonist who was admirable and interesting.  Followed by the many twists and turns the author would toss in usually involving deathly danger or war accompanied by the occasional ballad the author would throw in.  Of which I never read because of their long and repetitive nature.  These books were perfect and always left me wanting more, more adventure, more fighting, more danger.   

By the time I was in junior high, I had read lots of books usually involving war or some sort of adventure almost exclusively fictional but with a handful of non-fictions.  The ones I can remember include the Road to Arnhem by Donald R. Burgett and All the Way to Berlin by James Magellas.  In addition to these I also read a few books that were actually journals taken from different wartimes.  I also read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen in a 7th grade English class and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor.  It was interesting reading these historical fictions and true stories but unfortunately nothing could beat the fictional books that I was reading. 

 After finishing all the books in the series of Redwall and a few spin-offs of the same author, I moved onto more of the same style of books.  The Dragonlance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman was also full of adventure and fun but which a more mature and darker side than the fictional teenage Redwall series.  Originally used for the tabletop setting of D&D role-playing game it was adapted into books. These books involved betrayal, love, war, and gruesome deaths.  Although they followed the same path as the Redwall series they also offered a more philosophical and religious approach and asked you to choose the side of good or evil in the journey of the series.  These books greatly increased by vocabulary and opened a window to something more than watching tv or playing video games.  The satisfaction of completing a book and adding it to my collection also drove my craving for reading. 

Around the same time I was reading the Dragonlance series I also was introduced to the Harry Potter series.  The Harry Potter series was very entertaining and I continued to read them until the fifth book which seemed to trail off into uninteresting territory so I moved back to the Dragonlance series.  I had also found a few books linked to the popular game “Halo” at the time and read the small series that was made about it.  These books interested me because video games were and still are a favorite hobby of mine and gave me something to talk about with my friends and siblings. 

At the start of high school, I had finished all the books related to the Dragonlance series which were available at the time.  This collection has grown to a whopping one-hundred and fifty-two book series but around my freshman year of high school I unfortunately stopped reading altogether and lost interest.  The required readings from high school included Macbeth and a few others which naturally to most every kid in high school were very boring.  Overall, the combined readings from middle school to the beginning of high school greatly increased my vocabulary and assisted in better grades for both my English and other writing intensive classes I took and that I’m taking now.   

Using all the knowledge I’ve learned up to this point in my life I believe it will greatly improve my writing and communication skills.  In the IT field I think these skills will be especially useful in communicating clearly and efficiently with employers, co-workers, and customers.  The experience I’ve gained from the English classes and the reading I’ve done will be an invaluable asset for the rest of my life.