Becoming Literate

          I have very little memory of me learning to read and write as I was growing up living in my grandparent’s house.  Coming from Hispanic decent my first language was Spanish, and like many other students of Mexican heritage it was difficult for me to learn English.  I remember the first time I went to the library at my elementary school.  My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Fellhopper, took us there.  I remember it all too well.  The walls were painted a dark navy bluish color, with the reception desk to the left side, the librarian classroom to the right, and the books section opposite of the classroom.  Inside the classroom, the librarian always gave her annual presentations to the new classes.  That is where my process to learn how to read, write, and speak the English language all began.  Although it wasn’t such a simple process for me, I managed to become the reader and writer I am today.

          As my older brother and I were learning how to read and write it was not easy mainly because school was the only place where we really practiced our English.  It was frustrating because we did not have any previous education like some other students in my classes did.  Some parents already spoke both English and Spanish and they were able to teach their children both languages.  These students already had the basic principles of English being taught at school while learning to speak Spanish at home.  Unfortunately, I did not have either, and that opportunity probably could have made a significant difference for my brother and I.  Honestly, I did not enjoy reading and writing much.  I had no one to tell me to read at home such as a literacy sponsor and certainly I thought there was no real value in it.  This goes back to the reading “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X and Alex Haley.  It was not that I was dumb, it was hard for me to understand how to put words together in order to make them sound good, in order for them to make sense.

          Malcolm X (1965) said, “The more awareness you have over yourself the better control you have to becoming a great writer.” (Malcolm X, 1965) I was not aware at the time that I had a strong mind or that I was capable of learning a great deal and that I was smarter than any of my family members.  I excelled in other academic areas but when it came to reading and writing, I could not cut the mustard.  It was not until my fifth grade year that I realized I needed to study this in order to pass on to middle school.  I had barely passed the Reading/Writing Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) in the third and fourth grade by only a couple points and not to mention these tests were supposed to be quite easy, but when it came to fifth grade TAKS, I failed.  I was told I needed to take the test again until I passed and the worst part was that I only had two more chances.  Only then did I start to comprehend that I needed tutoring.  Sure enough they gave it to me, but this time with a group of three other students face to face with the teacher in a round table.

          I realized I would not pay attention to what the teacher was teaching, maybe because their teaching methods were not effective.  When I was getting tutored, I started to learn the methods because it was more hands on with the teacher.  Together my group and I started understanding what it took to begin writing a good essay, the writing process, and how to take tests.  We were simply taught what to do to pass the test that lay ahead of us.  As it was, all those hours I spent after school with my tutor were paying off.  The time came to take the TAKS reading test once again.  I remember it was the day of my birthday, May 7, when the second test results came in.  My teacher, Mrs. Stein, was calling us up one by one and showing us if we had passed or not on a small piece of yellow sticky paper but sadly, mine read “NO”.  I was devastated because I had put hard work into my tutoring and I would have to go to summer school.

          At home, my mother who visited us often had suggested that I read more and more.  Perhaps I was not reading because I was too much into video games which now a days can be incredibly bad if they are played too often and for large amounts of time.  I eventually began listening to her and began reading a book on the history of Paul Revere.  A boring book quite frankly, which I don’t think I ever got done reading.  Ultimately, my mother became what you can call my literacy sponsor.  She kept pushing me towards getting an education and to take advantage of the opportunity that not everyone gets.  By the next month after I had failed my second attempt at the reading portion of the TAKS test, I was being prepared in a way I hadn’t been before.  May be it was just the way the instructors were being taught to teach the kids who were in their first years of school?  What if it’s time to change the way instructors teach?  Those are the questions I sometimes ask myself.

          When it came down to taking the reading portion of the TAKS test for a third time, I managed to get away from the electronics that made it hard for me to concentrate on my studies.  I was able to gain the necessary knowledge needed to pass the test allowing me to begin the journey in to middle school, where I began to focus more on reading while I was easily getting through my other classes.  Goosebumps books held my interest the most which kept me going to the library more often to read them.  I would read book after book my whole sixth grade year.  In school we were now being taught how to go more into depth when writing.  How to brainstorm, outline and more forms of how to express ourselves in different ways.  Everyone generated their own form of writing.

         Children have the capability of teaching themselves to read often through the video games they play or through other means that enable us to read.  Like professor Peter Gray (2013) from Boston College said, “All kids will eventually know how to read.” (Peter Gray, Free to Learn, 2013) Some kids simply are not interested in reading when they are young, at an age of five, six, or seven; sorry to say I was one of those kids.  Nobody ever read in my house, except my uncle who also lived with us but he was never sympathetic towards educating me.  I mentally told myself, in order to understand more of the reading and writing process, I was required to further my readings.  After the Goosebumps books I moved up to a higher level reading, the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling.  I cherished every moment of those books.  They were much more in depth than the movies themselves, as is almost every book for which a movie was spawned, obviously.  I have memories of me spending whole days reading them from sun up to sun down stopping only to eat.

          By my eighth grade year I was at a reading and writing level I thought I would never have reached.  In my English class, I had finally landed an A to which my teacher congratulated me for having straight A’s the whole year.  I was proud of myself for reaching this level.  I was now reading on a massive scale; books such as the Eragon series by Chris Paolini, great books by the way.  However, my writing was still weak.  Although I was now fluent in the English language I knew I still had room for expansion.

          A simple notion that comes to mind when I think about English teachers is that they are essential to this world.  Developing technology such as computers, cell phones, and video games around the world get kids hooked on them making it difficult for them to grasp their attention, not just by the parents themselves but also by the teachers while in class.  I say that because I was one of those.  It is much easier for them to concentrate on the teaching when there are fewer students in the class.  Many students daydream while in class about getting home to play their video games.  I know for sure that while I was being tutored face to face I was learning much more than when I was in a classroom setting with much more students.  It is science, all kids think and act differently.

          Towards the end of my journey, once I got to high school I always thought it was going to be difficult.  Although I got through high school swiftly with my core classes, I was not able to grasp the A in any of my English classes except my senior year.  My writing was still improving and was still rather weak in writing about certain prompts.  I was not always the most creative person.  I always waited for the last minute to put something down on paper and that gave my teachers the idea that I consistently rushed through my papers resulting in bad writing.  My process was weak and it is what I needed to work on.  It became difficult work especially with specific curriculum such as poetry.  My senior year was where I was able to evaluate my process of researching and writing when doing specific papers such as writing about myself or analyzing poems.  It gave me confidence when implementing these processes.  I was rather surprised with the amount of A’s I was getting.  I was proud of myself on how literate I had become.

 

References

Anderson, M., Angeli, E., Brizee, A., Keck. R., Lawrick, E., Moore, K., Paiz, M. J., Soderlund, L., Wagner, J. (Last Edited: 2013-03-01).  Online Writing Lab: General Format.  Retrieved from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

 

Gray, P. (2010). Children Teach Themselves To Read. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201002/children-teach-themselves-read

 

X, M. (1965). Autobiography of Malcolm X. United States. Grove Press.