ENG 110
Professor Husk
21, September 2011
One Step at a time
Learning how to read and write started off fairly easy for me. I remember the first book I read like it was yesterday. I was 5 years old and I was at home with mommy sitting at my dining room table. As we began to read we made awkward sounds as we sounded out every word we came across. At first when we read it together I barely paid attention because she was pretty much reading it for me. I just sat and repeated the words and pretended I knew exactly what I was doing. Then came the day when she handed me a brand new book. She now expected me to read it on my own. At first I thought uuhh-ohh this is it she’s going to find out that I really can’t read, but then I thought maybe I should pretend that I know what I’m doing like I did before. I grabbed the book and curiously ran my eyes over each word. Then I barely looked up at my mom, I was so afraid I didn’t know where to begin. Everything was dark and the only thing I can see was the book and my mom’s face. I remember the taste of leftover lolly pop that I had not too long before I got home from school. I looked at the first word which looked very familiar, swallowed and then started reading. I made one of the awkward sounds me and my mom used to sound out words that weren’t easy to say. After I completed the first word I looked up for feedback from my mother. Expecting her to correct me, she smiled and said “very good, continue.” At first I thought this was stupid, she can’t really be listening to me, but as I read each word and looked up mommy remained all smiles. I couldn’t believe this, was I really reading?
The Term Paper on Books And Reading
Topical Vocabulary 1. Categorisation: Children’s and adult’s books; travel books and biography; romantic and historical novels; thrillers; detective stories; science fiction/fantasy; non-fiction; pulp fiction. absorbing; adult; amusing; controversial; dense; depressing; delightful; dirty; disturbing; dull; fascinating; gripping; moralistic; obscene; outrageous; profound; whimsical; unputdownable. ...
Once I felt confident with my reading I started to read often. The best part for me at such a young age was being able to read to others. I loved seeing their facial expressions as I read across each word. Seeing how impressed they were with my reading only made me want to continue.
Then I hit 3rd grade and everything just went downhill. The words got bigger and harder for me to understand. I was in the 4th grade still reading at a 2nd grade level. I started to get to the point where I just guessed the words all the time. Looking at how long the words were scared me out of reading them. No one understood why I couldn’t read as great as before, but I knew: I didn’t understand anything. Yes, I could sound out the words, but I didn’t understand anything that came out of my mouth. It was like reading a blank paper. If there are no words on a blank paper what exactly are you reading or understanding? It served no purpose for me. Then something truly came over me. I was tired of people being disappointed as I read. I wanted the same feeling I got when I was 5 years old. I wanted to take advantage and finally make reading worth my time. Reading took me to another place. When I read a book I felt like I was experiencing everything I read. I learned new words and facts that surprised me. Truth told, all it took was effort. I gave up before because I didn’t think I could handle learning how to use big words, they almost scared me out of reading for good. As I forced myself to continue to read and to go back to doing what I enjoy, my reading skills improved.
Every year I hear the words from numerous of people “To learn how to write, well you have to learn how to read.”You have to be able to understand what your writing before you put it on paper. I loved writing until I realized how bad I was at it. Writing helped me express my feelings on paper. It was just as great as reading was. Writing is another way for me to communicate with myself. To be able to put my feelings down on paper and read them helps me see who I am inside and out. The only thing that really held me back was my terrible grammar skills. It sucks that I can write such a great paper, but receive such a low grade because of my minor grammar mistakes. Grammar has been haunting me for my entire life. Every paper I write I’m either missing a comma or I have a fragment hidden somewhere in my paragraphs. I swear life would be so much easier without them, but writing would also be pointless. No matter how much I hate commas and periods. They make my papers so much more interesting. I’ve had such a bad grammar problem since I first learned how to write my name. Every time I wrote my name I spelled it with a lower case b. My entire year in first grade I always had to rewrite the b in my name at least once a week, because I would forget that every name started with an upper case letter. Eventually I overcame that phase, but that didn’t change anything. My grammar skills were still poor. I truly think I still need help with them till this day.
The Essay on A Little Literature: Reading, Writing, Argument
“A Little Literature: Reading, Writing, Argument” is a book that spans across multiple genres of literature and allows the reader to get a taste of classical and contemporary issues regarding the different values of society and how they evolve amongst secondary cultures (Barnet). The man to send rain clouds, by Leslie Marmon Silko “The man to send rain clouds” was originally published in the late ...
Reading and writing is something I know I will face for the rest of my life. The best part about reading and writing is learning how to use it. I had some bad experiences with both, but I still manage to try and understand it even though at one point I thought I wasn’t going to make it far. The impact reading and writing has on my life is huge. It brought me from learning my first word, to reading a 500 page text book on psychology, perhaps even writing my name correctly to writing a 5 page essay. Although I’m not an perfectionist. I still manage to get my point across and feel good about it. Even though I have a grammar issue that still doesn’t stop me from moving forward. Reading and Writing will always be one of the most important things in my life. If it brought me this far now, I can only imagine how far I’ll be in a couple of years.
