My name is Alaina and I am a student at Stevenson University majoring in fashion merchandising. I am living at home with my parents, Kelly and Vince, my sister, Alicia, our dog, Lucy, and our cat, Cici. We live in an older, suburban neighborhood in Baltimore county, nothing too fancy. In the evenings, I work at Macy’s as a sales associate. This is the first time I am attending school while working, so I am learning how to manage my time more efficiently. There was research done at New Georgetown University in 2015 that showed seventy percent of students nationwide worked while in school. This makes me feel more hopeful that it can be done. The reason I have made it this far in my educational career, started a long time ago when I was learning to read and write.
Both of my parents had the biggest impact on teaching me how to read and how to write. My dad has dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and he wears glasses. My mom has lighter brown hair, like mine, hazel eyes and she also wears glasses. They both are very literate and it was important for them to share that same love for reading with me. I asked my mom if there was any specific tool or device that really assisted me learn to read and she said when I was in pre-school and kindergarten, she would use these small flashcards with colorful pictures on them to teach me. For instance, a flashcard would have a picture of a red apple on it and typed on the bottom would say “apple”. I was a visual learner, so the word and picture combination helped me remember the object and what it was called. My mom and dad would go through the flashcards with me whenever there was downtime like after they got off work or on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
The second most important way I learned to read was through books themselves, a great step up from single-worded flashcards. My parents said they would read to me usually before bed when I was about three years old. My dad told me that I always had to pick a book that rhymed and was humorous. My favorite books were, There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow, and, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, both by Lucille Colandro. They were both hardcover, very colorful, and came with a plush doll of the main character, the old lady. Basically, in both books, this elderly woman with a grey bun in her hair inhales these things and nobody knows why. In There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow, the grey-haired lady ingests the proper tools to build a snowman. First, she swallows some snow, then a pipe, some coal, a hat, a stick, and finally a scarf. The end result is that she hiccups and everything flies out and lands perfectly as a snowman. In the other book, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, she ends up having to keep ingesting critters so that they will catch one another. She gets a spider to catch the fly, a bird to catch the spider and this keeps escalating until eventually she has to swallow a cow. My parents said they enjoyed reading these two books to me and that I savored the ludicrous stories and the rhyming words. I would recognize words I had seen on the flashcards and seeing how they were put together, forming sentences, was extremely helpful on my journey to learning to read.
The last technique that helped me learn to read and to write was television. I remember sitting on the green carpet of the living room floor at home waiting for my favorite shows on our old box television set. My mom told me that when I was younger I was really into Dora the Explorer. Dora the Explorer is a cartoon about a little girl with brown hair who ventures out on missions with help from her monkey friend, Boots. She also has other animated friends that assist her on her adventures such as, Map and Backpack. Throughout the series she taught me a ton of vocabulary in English and Spanish. This strengthened the words I already knew and showed me how to use them differently. The show also used music and math to keep my interest and make learning fun.
I believe these devices I used prepared me for where I am now. Many of the above techniques I used, I still use today. I continue to read all kinds of books, watch documentaries, and use flashcards to study vocabulary words. My college studies about the fashion industry have already brought me new experiences. I am going to be taking a business writing course and I am reading a History of Costume textbook which comes with many new terms. My foundation of literacy skills continues to improve every day.