Personal Narrative: The Lion King

I went to school, my teachers taught me how to sound out the letters and everybody learned the alphabet by the time they were in kindergarten. Ever since then, I was constantly trying to decode the mystery of several individual's story. There is a lot more to reading than just reading words off pages. You have to comprehend the story, understand what's happening in the book. I would sit on my grandma’s recliner chair and she would choose a book off her little shelf full of stories. She would read them to me just like the traditional, parent to child reading that most parents do. We would read for hours, Winnie the Pooh, Bernstein bears, Dr.Seuss, The Lion King, all the basic children’s stories you could think of. The Lion King was my favorite. I wouldn’t say Lion King necessarily taught me how to read words from books, but I did learn about plots, plot twists, conflicts, themes and most importantly the story. I know for a fact I didn’t know that I was learning, but it was teaching me. Now if none of this applies to you, well then you probably have an exciting story of how you became a reader, otherwise you’re just as basic as the average American student.
I

was in first grade when I experienced my first teacher that disliked me, Ms.Daily. I was two grades ahead of my reading level at that time, although since she hated me she sent me to summer school. I know she was hating on my reading abilities because there is absolutely no way a student in the first grade, reading at a third grade level, needs to attend summer school. I didn’t mind at first though, due to the fact that I loved reading. I started to mind when I found out that summer school was not really a place of learning, but more of a daycare for children who weren't succeeding academically. That year of summer school turned my life upside down. I met older kids who were bad influencers, I got in my first fight at the age of seven, and my love for reading was demolished. After that happened, my mom put an end to it right away. As a result, by my second grade year I was reading again.
There is a lot more to reading than just reading words off pages. You have to comprehend the story, understand what's happening in the book, and understand key concepts. I can still remember sitting on my living room carpet. We had bought it white, but by the second year of it being installed it was more of a creme beige color. The glass table top that technically had four white legs attached to it, one leg was barely standing because our Australian Shepherd Boomer had been chewing on it for who knows how long. Then there was the television set that had a box attached on the outside. Once again, my interest for reading was gone. That Tv became death to my love for reading. The summer before my fifth grade year in school I was officially introduced to electronics and reading was no longer on my schedule.
Once I became an efficient reader, reading in school was definitely not my favorite.

I couldn’t stand reading books that were assigned to me because I knew I had to read them whether I liked them or not. On top of that they had due dates. I always felt like an outsider because as soon as honors english or language arts was offered to me I took it not realising most of the kids in honors liked to read. The reason I felt like an alien about it was because it seemed like everybody loved the books we were assigned, although I could hardly get past the first page let alone the entire book. For example, The Red Kayak, I HATED that book. I loved the story, but for some reason I hated reading it. The only book I remembered that I actually enjoyed reading was The Outsiders. I honestly was very interested in that

book.
Not that anything is wrong with teaching, especially since I believe teachers form young generations into brilliant adults, but I knew teaching was not going to be the career for me as soon as middle school started. I would go to every class and someone would bring up a topic about a book and the teacher would say the book was better than the movie. I have personally have never experienced the “book being better than the movie” sense, although I don’t know if teachers lie to us to make us want to read more.
Overall, I do think that reading is a major role in today’s societies. Without being able to read well you most likely won’t be very successful in today’s world. Also, it helps a lot with things such as standardized tests, such as the ACT or SAT. Reading betters your comprehension and vocabulary significantly. All in all, my point is balance out your tv time and reading time, It will help you out in the long run.