Literacy Narrative

If I recall correctly, I was at about at the age of seven when I was finally able to actually read on my own. I believe it was a late fall day and I was in my kitchen. My mother was making dinner and I was at the table doing my homework. I was in first grade at the time and was learning how to finally read complete sentences and paragraphs. I remember my teacher, Mrs. Small, assigned each student to read a short story from our general English book. I remember being very frustrated and not wanting to do the homework. My mother finally came over and asked me what the problem. I told her that I didn’t want to read any more of the story. She told me to relax and just break it down, word by word. So after a little help from my mother, I was finally able to finish the story. After finishing the story, I was overcome with great satisfaction. I knew at that point that I was finally able to read on my own. Although that wasn’t obviously my first time reading a word, it was the first time that I was successfully able to finish reading a whole short story.

            I remember that my parents were my greatest influence as I learned to read. They were always very encouraging and wanted me to read as much as possible. My dad would always read me story books before bed when I was very small, although at the time, I didn’t know how to read words, I believe that it most likely helped in the recognition of words or how a book was even supposed to be read (the mechanics). Overall, I would have to say that my early literary learning experience was a very gratifying one.