Reflective Essay: The New Age Of Literacy

It wasn’t until elementary school that I noticed I started to develop literacy skills. I was never big into reading. Writing has always been easier for me, but I would say the 2nd grade is when I realized how important being able to read and write was, to be successful in life. I really can’t remember a time that I have actually read a book from start to finish and I don’t have much literacy history, because I was the only child and I always found other ways to keep myself occupied. My parents both worked full time jobs and long hours so the subject was never pressed on me when I was at home. I was pretty responsible as a child. I would go to and from school on my bicycle, then after school, I would do my homework and my chores before I went outside to play. When I was in school, I always had a lot of friends, so reading and writing never really fit in to my schedule at all. I knew at an early age, that I didn’t really care about literacy.

As a child, reading didn’t mean much to me.

I never had problems being able to read, I just felt like there was so many other fun things to do besides reading. I was never the kid that had a bunch of action figures and toys. I liked to build things out of Legos, K-nex, and Steel Tec. Then I got into the more skilled of building model cars and planes. Most of all I mainly enjoyed being outside as much as I could or tinkering with something. Aside from school, I have been a gear head for as long as I can remember. Anything that was motorized or had something to do with a motor has always sparked my interests. I have been riding dirt bikes since I was 5 years old, and nothing compared to being on my motorcycle. That is when I really knew I was not partial to reading. My mother worked in the motocross industry and my father rode dirt bikes too. Riding and being in the woods was a big part of my life, as that was what we did every weekend for

years.
When I started junior high school, I went to Ormond Beach Middle School. That was probably when English became one of my tougher subjects aside from math. It was a noticeable step from elementary school. History was usually one of my better subjects. I felt like that class helped me more with reading on my own more than anything else, because I enjoy real life topics, documentaries, and true stories. Sometimes we would have to read to ourselves, but majority of the time, the teacher would have us read as a class because we could discuss, summarize, and make sense of what we just read. I didn’t like to read but that was how the teacher would try to get everybody to be involved. I never judged anyone who was big into literacy. It simply was just something I was never interested in.
By the time I was in 7th grade, my parents had split up. I moved from my father’s house in Daytona Beach, FL. to my mother’s house in Port Orange, FL. I attended the 7th grade at Silver Sands Middle School. The teaching was a little different, but I actually enjoyed my 7th grade English class. The teacher was never big on making us read, but we had a lot of writing assignments. That class I felt had a pretty good impact on my literacy skills because her method of teaching was to prepare us for high school. About half way through the 8th grade I had to switch schools again. I moved back to my father’s house, which was now in the school zone for a different middle school called, Campbell Middle School. Switching schools a lot probably didn’t help me with wanting to read and write any more than what I had to. There were things about this school that were way different than what I was used to, that’s for sure. The classrooms were way over crowded, there were fights daily, and it was as if the students ran the school instead of the faculty. I did have a pretty cool English teacher though. Her class we did do a lot of reading, so I wasn’t very excited about that. Even though I hated reading, I remember her saying to me, “One good way that you could be a better reader, would be to start out reading about things that you are interested in like a magazine article or the local newspaper.”
Growing up my father always had Hot Rod Magazines lying around. I always liked flipping through them just to look at the pictures of the cars. There would be articles with the pictures, but most of it at the time was gibberish to me. The end of jr. high going into high school was when I really started getting into cars. I was making my transition from dirt bikes into cars because I was going to get my drivers license. I have been around racing my whole life. My uncles have been into powerboat racing and my fathers always had racecars for drag racing with the occasional boat race from time to time. I use to always tell myself, I couldn’t wait to build my own car one day. When I was a kid, one of my favorite cars was a Ford “Fox Body” Mustang. “ The Ford Fox Platform” was produced from 1978 to 1993. 1982 was when the 5.0L High Output engine was introduced and the famous 5.0 badges were on the fenders of the Mustang. When I would see one going down the street, I always thought that is a cool car. The distinctive exhaust note of a 5.0L and a good looks, I was hooked. When I decided what my first real fast car was going be, I started doing research on Mustangs. I wanted to know about how to make the car go fast while being safe. Usually, I would just ask my father because he seems to always have an answer for my question if it is car related. Then I discovered forums on the Internet. Forums are bulletin or discussion boards where people focus more around a certain topic. I think of it as an online community where you can read discussions and respond to posts that other forum members have made. There are forums for just about anything you can think of. Since I decided that I was going to build a Mustang, I joined a couple of different forums that were all Mustang related. Just like anything, they took a little while to figure out how to use. Once I got the hang of it I started asking questions and it was like reading and writing was back in my life again. People would respond to my questions and I would read other members posts or follow somebodies build from start to finish. Majority of the time if I had a question, it has been answered several times already. After a while, I caught myself reading for hours and hours. Even though I don’t really have much of a literacy background, I think the forums helped me with getting back into reading. Its like I found people who are all interested in the same thing as me and it is easier to read and discuss things.
High school was a blur for me because I skipped a lot. Now here it is 10 years since being done with high school and I am a freshman in college, in my second semester. I haven’t done much of any literacy for a long time. My first class ever in college was SLS1122. I had to do a lot of writing, which consisted of journals that the teacher had selected for us. We also had to read the book because there were chapter test questions. I did more reading in this one class, than I have in all my years of school put together. The book On Course is a textbook about creating strategies for success in college and life. When I was younger I thought I knew how important reading and writing was to be successful in life but since I have been in college, it has really made me see why literacy is so important. Its like I am learning the English subject all over again. I am still working everyday to improve my literacy skills. I still read a lot of forums and write-ups. And all those Hot Rod Magazines with all the gibberish next to the picture actually make some sense now.