Literacy Adventures – Destiney Quillen
Destiney Quillen is a freshman majoring in Elementary Education with a minor in Physical Education. Destiney resides in Eaton Ohio, she works part-time at a daycare center, and she cannot wait to take her career to the next level. This paper was written for Professor Laverne Nishihara’s ENG-W131, Reading, Writing & Inquiry, in Fall 2020. Prof. Nishihara comments, “This Project 1 paper gave a very good account of the journey from struggling with reading and writing, to growing confidence and accomplishment. Your writing was strong from the start, and with your hard work and persistence throughout the semester, you achieved excellence time after time!”
Literacy Adventures
Literacy is the ability to read and write. This has been a huge struggle since I was little. I even struggle today; if it were not for our discussion in class about desperation writing, I would not have known how to start this essay. The desperation writing style has helped me a lot. At a young age, I could not seem to understand how things were supposed to be pronounced or how to space my words out when writing so that my teacher could understand them. When trying to pronounce and spell words, I would add letters that did not sound like they belonged. When I wrote, I would jumble all my words together to make what looked like a long sentence without spaces. Without my family and teachers, I would not be the person I am today. The support I received from them has shaped me into the writer I have become. I could write about many different experiences, but only a few have made significant impact on me, including my fourth grade struggle with reading and my mom and aunt’s determination with teaching me literacy.
An experience that has made a huge impact on my literacy journey is similar to Gearharts’ experience. Gearharts (2020) wrote an essay titled, “indeed, Blonds Can Read.” Her essay was about her personal experience learning literacy. One particular part in her essay that stuck out to me was about her not being able to meet her reading standards. I, too, had reading requirements that my classmates had to meet for each month, and if we met the reading requirements, then we would receive some sort of reward. When I was in fourth grade, I had trouble meeting my reading requirements for the month, like Gearharts. I remember sitting in the small, blue chairs at the computers in my elementary school library trying to pass a quiz over a book I barely read. I hardly read these books because I was so focused on trying to read them fast enough to meet all my reading requirements. Reading books quickly never worked for me; I could not comprehend a whole lot when I was just reading through the words instead of taking them in and concentrating on them. Gearharts (2020) stated, “as students we learned to outsmart the system” (pp. L-7) and this is exactly what I did. Just so I would not be left out of the rewards, I decided to pick lower level books than I was capable of reading so I could pass the quizzes on the computer and receive all my points for the month. Before I started doing this, I would miss out on the movie day or parties that were held for the students that met their requirements, which only made me not want to attend school that day. I understood that the requirements were set to improve my reading skills but doing so in such a way did not improve my skills at all. I believe there should be a better way put in place to help students improve their reading skills instead of, in a way, trying to bribe them into reading books. “Bribing” us into reading only made me find shortcuts to succeeding instead of truly earning them and learning from them.
My literacy struggle began as far back as I can remember. Around the age of six or seven my mom realized I was having trouble reading and writing. I stumbled over my words while trying to read, completely mispronounced words, and could hardly write a readable sentence. She was determined to do her best to help me learn. She had the same issues growing up and understood what I was going through. She received minimal help when she was in school and did not want the same to happen to me. After searching online to help me at home, she came across this box of learning books. My mom thought these books would be a great help, so she decided to order them. These books came with many different sorts of stories that were designed to help a child learn to read. When I first received them, I was very excited. They were so bright and full of many colors with amazing pictures. There were so many tiny books with so many kinds of stories. I quickly started to read them with my mom’s help. After a while of reading every day, I grew bored with it and did not want to continue. My mom would encourage me to keep going even if it was just one book a day that we read. She explained to me that even a small amount of reading a day could make a huge change. I sat across from my mom at our maroon-colored garnet countertop every day because of her encouragement. This helped me show progress and motivated me to continue learning. These books, with my mom’s help, improved my literacy tremendously. At the time I hated reading them and listening to my mom explain them, but in the end, it helped a lot, and I am very grateful for that. Without my mom’s help, I believe I would have fell behind in school and lost interest in trying to learn something that I thought was “the hardest thing to do.”
Around the same time my mom took notice in my reading, my aunt started noticing my writing. I would go to my aunt’s house after a long day at school. I was with my aunt more than I was at home. My favorite thing about going to her house after school was the smell of the food she was cooking on the stove or the dessert she was baking in the oven. She always had something good she was cooking or some great dessert she was baking. After sitting down for a little to eat her amazing food, I would pull out my homework. While doing my homework, she noticed my writing. She said she could hardly read it and was going to help me learn to write. My writing was jumbled all together and was barely legible. She went to the store and bought me whiteboards and a notepad with lines to write on. She worked with me every day until she could understand my writing and until I made enough progress to show the difference. Today, she comments on my writing to state how much she likes it. She will have me write letters for her, write out recipes, or write anything she wants to look nice.
The experiences I had growing up with literacy made a huge impact on who I am today. I have come a long way since first learning to read and write, and now I want to share how I learned and teach younger children how to do the same. I work at a daycare, and every time I am there I work with students trying to improve their reading and writing skills. I love breaking through with them and teaching them new words. When they finish a long day at school, they get off the bus so eager to tell me the new words they have learned to spell. The help I have received growing up has helped influence my life decisions. I have chosen to go to Indiana University East for elementary education to be a first-grade teacher. I have chosen this career path due to my mom’s encouragement, my aunt teaching me to write, and my teachers for helping me through school.
In conclusion, literacy has impacted my life more than I realized. Growing up, my experiences with literacy have influenced my lifelong decisions. If I never received the help I needed, I probably would have despised reading and writing, and I would have avoided it at all costs. When I began to lose interest and cheat my way out of learning, my family and teachers stepped up to keep me motivated. I will be forever grateful for the time they took to teach me and the lessons I learned along the way. I want to make an impact on other people the way my literacy sponsors have left an impact on me.
Reference
Gearharts, R. (2020). Indeed, blondes can read. In E. Wardle & Downs (Eds.), Writing about writing: For Indiana University East (4th ed., pp. L.5-L.9). Bedford/St. Martin’s.