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Day of Birth
The factors of my literacy development started with my parents getting divorced (2002). I think the main event behind my literacy development is because my mother moved us around a lot up as kids. With every new town/state I lived in, I was taught new literacy material, heard new languages, and learned new vocabulary within my community and school. Another factor due to the divorce was that I often had to to do my literacy homework by myself since my mom was always working. -
First Word
I said my first word, "mom" (sounded like "mum"), when I was about 6 months old. That was the start of my expressive language. -
Creating sentences
I started putting words together to make short sentences after I turned one. My mother is the one who helped me to begin talking because she was the one that I was always around. She would talk to me constantly to help me begin to speak. -
Ear Tubes
I failed the hearing test in kindergarten, which caused me to get ear tubes. The hearing difficulty that I had could have been the factor as to why I needed Speech Therapy because hearing can effect your speech. -
Brothers are back! (4th grade)
With my mother getting full custody of all four children, I lived with all three of my brothers once again. Having more siblings around helped my literacy because I would talk a lot more around the house with them and help teach my younger brothers how to read and write. -
Moved to Sheffield, Illinois (4th grade)
Moving to Sheffield exposed me to a new school, which led me to meeting new people and learning how everyone in my new school and community spoke, which expanded my vocabulary and knowledge of other accents. -
Speech Therapy (4th grade)
I began speech therapy due to problems pronouncing digraphs. I could understand what sounds they made so I could read them in my head just fine, but I had a hard time actually pronouncing words that included the letters sh, th, and ch. (May have been 3rd grade) -
Cam Jansen and Junie B. Jones books (4th grade)
These books were the only ones that you would catch me reading outside of school. Once I read the first book in the series, there was not a day I went without at least reading a chapter because I was so excited to know what was next. From what I remember, I was not a big fan of reading chapter books until these books were introduced to me. -
Graduated Speech Therapy (4th grade)
After 3-4 months of going to speech therapy (twice a week), I improved enough to graduate speech therapy. In graduating speech therapy, I learned to pronounce the digraphs I had trouble with, which motivated me to start speaking more because I was confident enough to finally speak. -
Spelling Bee (5th grade)
Being one of the top spellers in my class, I was chosen to compete in my school's spelling bee. This influenced my literacy because after studying for the spelling bee for weeks, I became so interested in knowing how to spell every word that I heard. I was in the top 15 left in the spelling bee and incorrectly spelled a word due to getting so nervous and not focusing. Being so close to winning also pushed me to want to learn how to spell more words correctly. -
Girl Scouts (5th grade)
I was known to have the best handwriting in my Girl Scouts troop, so I was nominated to do all of the writing for any posters or flyers we had. Being in charge of this pushed me to make sure all my writing was perfect and looked attractive. -
First library card (6th grade)
I had never visited a public library by myself until I heard a classmate say that our public library (which I lived close to) had a glass floor. So I took a trip there to see if it was true and in that trip, I explored the whole library. The amount of books, clever places to sit, toys, and computers they had fascinated me so I decided I wanted to start going there as often as possible. My mom signed me up for a library card and I was there reading and exploring at least twice a week. -
Moved to Sterling, Illinois (6th grade)
Moving to Sterling brought me to a new community and a new school that had a wider variety of race, ethnicity, language, etc. than I was used to. I was used to smaller towns where everybody knew everybody and everybody talked the same way and did the same things. -
Diary (6th grade)
One can imagine the way I felt with having my brothers living with me again, moving again, and beginning adolescence. With all the emotions I was feeling, I began to start writing in a diary. Around this time is when I started to realize that I enjoyed writing and explaining my thoughts on paper. -
Poems (6th grade)
After discovering how much I loved writing, I started to look into poetry. Luckily enough, I had an assignment this year to write different kinds of poems and put it together in a packet. After exploring poetry and beginning to write my own poems, I would write my mom a poem for Mother's Day for years. -
BOOK IT! Program (6th grade)
Pizza Hut had a program that gave students certificates for reaching their reading goals in school, which helped to motivate me to read as often as I could. Pizza Hut was my favorite kind of pizza as a child so I was always wanting to win personal pans from there so I always tried to reach my reading goals. -
Wrote my own book (7th grade)
My teacher bought every student a blank book and our assignment was to create our own story. I created and titled my story, The Nailpolish Tree, and actually used nailpolish to illustrate my book. In coming up with an idea for my story, I had a ton of ideas. This led me to wanting to write all kinds of stories after I finished this assignment. -
Hispanic best friend (7th grade)
I became best friends with a bilingual girl named Alejandra. I spent a lot of my time with her and we used to take walks for fun. On every walk we took, I had her teach me at least one new Spanish word and she would test me on it on our future walks. She is the one who helped me to master colors in Spanish. -
Little brother speech therapy (7th grade)
My little brother had to go to speech therapy due to mispronouncing his "R"s, but since I knew what it was like to feel like an outcast because I could not speak properly, I decided to help him. I would practice with him everyday and model how to correctly pronounce "R"s, which I believe helped my literacy because I read stories to help as my modeling technique. -
Cursing (7th grade)
Like most teenagers did, I wanted to fit in with my other peers. This is when cursing and slang came into my vocabulary. Although it may not have been the best way to expand my vocabulary, I still learned about new words. My authorities quickly let me know what cursing and slang was, which did broaden my understanding of language. -
Mrs. E (7th grade)
My English teacher in 7th grade is one I remember because I never wanted to listen to her because she had an authoritarian style of teaching and the way she introduced us to books with unfamiliar topics made it difficult to be interested in. She did not show much enjoyment to beginning a new book and made us read and write about it with no discussion, which made me less interested in reading books with unfamiliar topics. -
Mrs. Muhs (8th grade)
Mrs. Muhs changed my disinterest in reading stories that were not appealing to me as well as my unawareness of correct grammar. Her prosody while reading stories made it easy for me comprehend and pay attention to the story. Her compassion and explanations and examples for grammar made it easier for me to understand (the majority of) the grammar rules. After being in her class, I was more motivated to read stories I may have not wanted to read and I became what is known as a "Grammar Nazi." -
First Spanish class - Muzzy (8th grade)
Muzzy is a language learning product that my teacher used to help us learn Spanish. Since it was a beginners class, we watched a lot of Muzzy videos about the basics of Spanish (alphabet, numbers, greetings, conjugates etc.). The videos provided the material we needed to know by having story lines and songs, which made things easier to remember. This product is what taught me and helped me to better understand the basics of Spanish. -
Social Media (8th grade)
Right before 8th grade is when I started creating social media accounts (Myspace, Twitter, Yahoo Messenger), which effected my literacy by expanding ways to say or spell something (even if it wasn't correct). When making posts or sending messages online, I used "text talk" (or abbreviations), because it was the "cool thing" to do. I knew I was not allowed to write like that in school, so I felt rebellious doing it out of school because I felt like it did not effect my grades in school. -
Reflection
I think that literacy development was most impacted by moving around a lot. All of the schools I went to had different ways of teaching literacy, so I got to learn in various ways from different teachers. Also due to moving, I met a lot of new friends who exposed me to new ways to learn to read, write, and speak. (cont'd on next event) -
Reflection cont'd
I was shy when I was younger, so when I first moved to a new place, I usually kept to myself. With the moving and my family split up due to the divorce, I had a lot of feelings during my childhood. Because of this, I read often for pleasure and to help get my mind off things, and I wrote in my diary (and for schoolwork) about my feelings and what was going on in my life. As a future educator, I plan to use my past experience to motivate students to write often or teach them to read for pleasure.
