Literacy Biography
How my reading journey began:
Growing up, I loved books. As a young child before I had the ability to read myself, I would love when my parents and teachers would read to me. There was something very relaxing about being read to by an adult, and hearing the story narrated by them.
Once I got older and had to do the work myself, my love for reading changed. I was very stubborn when it came to reading on my own. There was nothing I hated more than assigned reading, especially summer reading. If I was going to read, I wanted it to be a book of my own choosing, which is why my early elementary years are some of my best literacy memories.
Once I got older and had to do the work myself, my love for reading changed. I was very stubborn when it came to reading on my own. There was nothing I hated more than assigned reading, especially summer reading. If I was going to read, I wanted it to be a book of my own choosing, which is why my early elementary years are some of my best literacy memories.
I remember some of my favorite books that I got to choose to read where Horrible Harry by Suzy Kline and The Magic Treehouse by Mary Pope Osborne.
I read these books when i was in about first through third grade. As I got into fourth and fifth grade teachers would assign books to read and give tight deadlines, and almost all of the time I would strongly dislike the books they would give. I will never forget in the summer going into fifth grade we were assigned The Seven Wonders of Sassafras springs by Bethany Birney and it was tortuous for me to read. It was very long and boring, and because of my disinterest it deterred me from reading.
I read these books when i was in about first through third grade. As I got into fourth and fifth grade teachers would assign books to read and give tight deadlines, and almost all of the time I would strongly dislike the books they would give. I will never forget in the summer going into fifth grade we were assigned The Seven Wonders of Sassafras springs by Bethany Birney and it was tortuous for me to read. It was very long and boring, and because of my disinterest it deterred me from reading.
The struggles:
As I began to lose interest in the books we were reading, and began to get anxiety about meeting the tight deadlines of reading a certain amount of pages in a certain amount of days, I found myself slacking off and not doing the reading like I should be, and I found myself not even just disliking the reading, but dreading it.
By the time middle school came around I wanted absolutely nothing to do with books. From having so many assigned readings that drove me insane to having teachers assign me more reading than I could do, the words "today you will be reading..." from a teacher would send me into panic.
As Middle school progressed I also began to develop chronic headaches. As if reading was not already hard enough, this made reading almost impossible. 
Things that helped:
When I was little I really loved being read too. One of my favorite things in my whole childhood is when my dad would read me this story from a Disney book that my parents got me called a Bugs Life Christmas. My dad would use really funny voices and would make the book like a movie for me. It was a very unique book that no teacher had ever read me, which is why it was even more special when my dad read it.
When I was in school, I would love it when teachers would read to me as well. We would all gather on the carpet and my teachers would read me some of my favorite books such as:
As I got older, and reading became more challenging, I turned to audiobooks. I have always and still do find that listening to reading is much more helpful than sitting there and reading the text.
Going into teaching, although reading is a challenge for me, I still have a passion for childrens books. I love the images and the stories they tell. During my time in SEFE I loved reading to my students and hearing their thoughts about the reading. One of my favorite books to read to my students in my kindergarten classroom was Dog on a Frog by Kes and Claire Gray and Jim Field. The kids loved this book because it was filled with rhymes that made them laugh.
How my writing journey began:
Going into teaching, although reading is a challenge for me, I still have a passion for childrens books. I love the images and the stories they tell. During my time in SEFE I loved reading to my students and hearing their thoughts about the reading. One of my favorite books to read to my students in my kindergarten classroom was Dog on a Frog by Kes and Claire Gray and Jim Field. The kids loved this book because it was filled with rhymes that made them laugh.
How my writing journey began:
One of my earliest memories of learning how to write was in kindergarten when we were learning the alphabet. In my town, we used letter people to learn our letters.
Letter people were inflatable people with one letter on them. My teacher would have a story about each person to help us remember the letter and to make learning about each letter engaging and fun. The class would get so excited whenever we were going to learn about a new letter because we would get to meet a new letter person.
My Writing Today:
Writing for me today is something I enjoy doing. Freshman year I had to write a 10 page paper for Child Growth and Development, and that was PAINFUL, but writing in general for me is fairly enjoyable. I have never been one to creatively write, but it has never been something that has bothered me in school.
Because reading was such a struggle for me, I typically preferred writing over reading. I like writing papers that have open-ended responses where I can use some creativity. When I have to write factual based papers is when I struggle with writing. Research papers and papers where most of the information is not from my own knowledge challenge me. My favorite type of writing is when I can write about a story or something that is not necessarily deemed right or wrong.
