Being able to read and write is a privilege every person should have access to. It is a necessity in today’s world to be literate. My first memory of literacy was when I was four year olds eating breakfast with my family at my aunt and uncle’s house. Growing up in a Filipino household, having over fifteen guests for a meal was considered a normal thing. I remember sitting at the kitchen table looking at the container of butter sitting next to my plate. I read the words on it out loud, “I can’t believe it’s not butter.” My parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins all stared at me as if I were a genius. It was not common for them to hear a four-year-old to be able to read words with apostrophes in them. Being literate in my family was common, but being able to read and write words that were more than two syllables was rare.
Growing up in my household was
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It is being able to determine how and why the writer chose those words or phrases. Being raised by parents whose first language was not English and whose highest education was a high school diploma was not very ideal. However, it made me the reader/writer I am today. Speaking three different languages as a kid led to my appreciation of reading. Even the influences of trying to fit in in middle school led me to joining the vocal jazz group in high school. It is almost like the butterfly effect, one event led to another, heavily impacting each other. If it were not for these experiences I would not be in the state of literacy that I am in now. I would not be able to appreciate artists’ meaning of their music. Music can provoke so many different emotions from people. There is a difference between just listening to music and understanding it. Listening to music is just playing a song without really listening to it. However, understanding music is finding out why the artist wrote it and being able to find yourself in the lyrics and the song
Literacy gives courage and provides a positive influence in times of crisis.
My relationship with writing has been much like roller coaster.Some experiences I had no control over. Other experiences were more influential. Ultimately it wasn’t until I started reading not because I had to read but because I wanted to, that's when my relationship reached change. I would have probably never cared about writing as I do today if it weren't for the critics in my family. When I was a child, my aunts and uncles always been in competition with who's child is better in school. I have always hated reading and writing because of the pressure to prove my family wrong was overwhelming for me. I had to prove them wrong and show them that I was capable of being "smart" which according to them was getting straight A's in all your classes.
“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.... Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man,
Throughout my childhood, the idea of having a college education was greatly stressed. As a result, it was my duty as the next generational child, to excel in my studies and achieve a life of prosperity and success. Learning became the basic foundation of my growth. Therefore, my youth was overtaken by many hours spent reading and writing what was known to be correct "Standard" English. I first found this to be a great shortcoming, but as I grew older, I began to realize the many rewards acquired by having the ability to be literate.
It was finally time to head to gym class in the afternoon where we were instructed to take part of a physical test. This test would determine how fit or unfit we are based on a system that was implemented by those with greater authority, on which concluded that it was on such a scale society should be based on. So it was that afternoon that I preformed the tasks that were instructed on to me and my peers. I was able to completed them to my utmost potential which can be consider to be something not so distinctive. It was on this day that I was mocked by one my peers of my lack of ability to preform the instructed physical tasks, that was a no brainer to such a fit individual like himself. It
Finding a definition of literacy is not as easy as it sounds. The Webster definition says that to be literate is to be” able to read and write.” But to some researchers, this definition is too simplistic, leading to multiple models of literacy. Most Americans adhere to the autonomous model, which falls closest to the standard, dictionary definition. Believers in this form say that literacy is a cognitive activity that students learn like any other basic skill. It has a set of proficiencies that one must master in order to be capable of decoding and encoding text (Alvermann, 2009; SIL International, 1999). A competing theory is the ideological model, which claims literacy is intrinsically linked to culture, and therefore what constitutes a “literate” individual is ever-changing. Society is the largest influence on literacy, according to this thought, and it is affected by politics, religion, philosophy and more (Alvermann, 2009; SIL International, 1999). These two are just the tip of the iceberg. For example, some studies recognize “literacy as competence,” which is a “measure of competence to do a given task or work in a given field,” (SIL International, 1999) such as being computer literate. Although more researchers are recognizing and exploring multiple literacies, the one that most influences American schools is the autonomous, cognitive model – the ability to read and write. For many, it seems a simple task, but millions of adolescents are struggling or reluctant readers, and there are many reasons why young readers have difficulty with reading. XXXXXX------NEED HELP WITH THESIS STATEMENT HERE PLEASE—(This paper will focus on the effects of low reading skills, some of the possible causes of reluctant and struggling readership...
Life is like a tree, it grows and develops branches and leaves that come and go as we progress. The environments we live in determine which branches wither and fade and which prosper. Every branch holds some form of learned literacy from the end of the roots to the trunk and highest branch. Literacy encompasses many aspects of life.
The story of my history as a writer is a very long one. My writing has come full circle. I have changed very much throughout the years, both as I grew older and as I discovered more aspects of my own personality. The growth that I see when I look back is incredible, and it all seems to revolve around my emotions. I have always been a very emotional girl who feels things keenly. All of my truly memorable writing, looking back, has come from experiences that struck a chord with my developing self. This assignment has opened my eyes, despite my initial difficulty in writing it. When I was asked to write down my earliest memory of writing, at first I drew a blank. All of a sudden, it became very clear to me, probably because it had some childhood trauma associated with it.
My literacy journey began long before I had actually learned how to read or write. While recently going through baby pictures with my mother, we came across a photo of my father and I book shopping on the Logos boat, a boat that would come to my island every year that was filled with books for our purchasing. Upon looking at this picture, my mother was quite nostalgic and explained how they began my journey to literacy through experiences like this. My earliest memory of experiencing literature was as a small child. My parents would read bedtime stories to me each night before I went to bed. I vividly remember us sitting on the bed together with this big book of “365 bedtime stories for 365 days” and we read one story each day until we had
As a child, I have always been fond of reading books. My mother would read to me every single night before I went to bed and sometimes throughout the day. It was the most exciting time of the day when she would open the cabinet, with what seemed to be hundreds of feet tall, of endless books to choose from. When she read to me, I wanted nothing more than to read just like her. Together, we worked on reading every chance we had. Eventually I got better at reading alone and could not put a book down. Instead of playing outside with my brothers during the Summer, I would stay inside in complete silence and just read. I remember going to the library with my mom on Saturdays, and staying the entire day. I looked forward to it each and every week.
All I could remember on my journey to literacy was my concern over my brother and sister’s ability to read and write including solving math problems. That did not really motivate not to become literate; I was extremely playful as a child. What I am able to remember is my first day of school, I cried like a baby when my mom dropped me off. I soon began to grow out of my baby stage and school became really interesting. Even though it was not as hard as it is now, the value that pushed me to be literate was how my teacher was able to discipline students if they didn’t give the best to their education.
Growing up in working class family, my mom worked all the time for the living of a big family with five kids, and my dad was in re-education camp because of his association with U.S. government before 1975. My grandma was my primary guardian. “Go to study, go to read your books, read anything you like to read if you want to have a better life,” my grandma kept bouncing that phrase in my childhood. It becomes the sole rule for me to have better future. I become curious and wonder what the inside of reading and write can make my life difference. In my old days, there was no computer, no laptop, no phone…etc, to play or to spend time with, other than books. I had no other choice than read, and read and tended to dig deep in science books, math books, and chemistry books. I tended to interest in how the problem was solved. I even used my saving money to buy my own math books to read more problems and how to solve the problem. I remembered that I ended up reading the same math book as my seventh grade teacher. She used to throw the challenge questions on every quiz to pick out the brighter student. There was few students know how to solve those challenge questions. I was the one who fortunately nailed it every single time. My passion and my logic for reading and writing came to me through that experience, and also through my grandma and my mom who plant the seed in me, who want their kids to have happy and better life than they were. In my own dictionary, literacy is not just the ability to read and write, it is a strong foundation to build up the knowledge to have better life, to become who I am today.
This book strengthened me mentally because of this quote: “How can you read this? There’s no pictures!” The reply was, “Well, some people use their imagination.” I came to United States when I was a freshman in high school. However, reading English in America is much different and I was faced with new words and accents.
There are many different types of events that shape who we are as writers and how we view literacy. Reading and writing is viewed as a chore among a number of people because of bad experiences they had when they were first starting to read and write. In my experience reading and writing has always been something to rejoice, not renounce, and that is because I have had positive memories about them.
Going into this class I did not know what to expect because it was my very first education class. Going into the class I was pretty confident that teaching is what I wanted to do, but I was still a bit nervous that the class would change my mind. Luckily it did not and it reassured me that teaching is what I am meant to do with my life. The class itself was a huge eyeopener for things that I never considered when thinking about pursuing a career in teaching. Junior Achievement was also very helpful and reassuring that I made the correct choice of major.