My Reflection Of The First Memories Of Literacy

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As I reflect on my childhood the first memory of literacy I recall is when I was in kindergarten. I was approaching the end of the school year when my mother reveled to me my teacher was considering keeping me in kindergarten for another year. I was extremely upset and felt as if I had failed my first year of school. I was fresh out of the gate and already defective. My perception as a child was that the adults were already giving up on me. The teacher stated if I could learn the alphabet by the end of the school year I could continue ahead to the 1st grade. The conclusion of Kindergarten was vastly approaching. My mother constructed flash cards to help with my letter recognition. In doing so, she realized I could not see the letters. …show more content…

I had a sister who always excelled in the classroom. She loved reading and academics seemed to come easily to her. Parent-teacher conferences went very different for us. This year after parent teacher conferences my mother attempted to motivate me using a different strategy. She pronounced that my sister would get a toy for having good grades. She informed me if I were to receive favorable grades next time I would earn a toy. I was eminently upset, and eager to receive a toy for my academic abilities. I recall sitting in the kitchen many nights after this reading. I read all the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen adventure books, and anything by R.L. Stine. I was a slow reader, but I was determined to improve my literacy. Reading more enhanced my vocabulary, and improved my comprehension. I was still not at the same level as most of my peers, but I was making progress. I would avoid using this approach with my own children. It did work for me, but it could have just as easily discouraged me. I would also avoid comparing children because they are all different. Instead I would try to nurture each child’s abilities. Seventh grade through ninth grade was problematic because I was more interested in my friends than what book I was reading. I remember struggling with the fundamentals of writing. I would love to say I worked really hard and overcame my struggles at this time. Unfortunately, I was not interested, and felt I had better things to do. I genuinely have no idea how they let me pass these grade because I was not participating. If I had a student like this in my classroom I would try to find out about a topic they were interested

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