Literacy Autobiography Blog #1

Growing up I didn’t really like to read. My parents tried everything that they could have to get me to read a book. I remember right before I would got to sleep at night, one of my parents would read me a book and I would enjoy that. In my grammar school, every week we had to pick out a book from the library and it could never be the same book twice. I always wanted to read the Winnie The Pooh books because he was one of my favorite characters but my librarian would always tell me that I had picked that same book already. It really wasn’t until I was in the 8th grade when I started reading for fun. I was at a book fair and purchased a random book that I really ended up loving. My dad really supported me to continue reading and he keeps inspiring me to read because he always reads books in his free time. I think that because I picked up reading on my own, I was very encouraged to keep reading. I would say having to pick out the library books each week at my grammar school mainly because my librarian wasn’t the nicest person in the world and she would not encourage me to try and read books that were of my age group. Inside school, I was okay at reading aloud but still very nervous because a lot of words confused me. I was also diagnosed with dyslexia when I was in grammar school, so it was hard enough just to pass my spelling tests let alone read a book. I can actually remember being in kindergarten and I had to study for a spelling test, my dad was helping me and giving me practice spelling test but I got a lot of the words wrong. That experience really stuck with me.

It really wasn’t until my freshman year of high school that I started to feel that I could read better and write papers better too. I started to really love writing and did it for fun. I even stared to write poetry and long letters to people that I love. Speaking was never really my strong suit, but if I did have to talk about something I always try to make sure to incorporate or make the topic about something that I love. I always have enjoyed listening to audio books and reading the book at the same time, it helps me to remember what is happing in the story. I would say that visual repression of things that we were learning about, such as pictures really helped me to see and understand what we were learning. I would say something that really frustrated me, especially when I was in grammar school were some teachers who did not understand what I was going through and would actually yell at my whole class because of it. I really did not like my grammar school and honestly, I don’t know how it’s still open. Growing up my sister was my role model. I was looked up to her, to me she was this smart person that knew everything and could do anything.

Today I love literacy, I see the impacts that certain books have on certain societies. I see how books can shape a person and how they can inspire someone. I use literacy in a lot of ways in my life. For inspiration to maybe write a poem or to help me with characters that I play as in Dungeons & Dragons games that I play in. I would say that my dad continues to inspire me with continuing on with my literacy because he has written a book and I would also love to write a book myself. I also write poetry a lot for my boyfriend, so that always encourages me to write something new! I would also say my professors inspire me to keep writing.