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Birth
It was a Monday morning and the current headlines were about hostages in Iran. According to my baby book, dresses were coming closer to the knees. -
Bedtime Stories
Bedtime stories usually had pictures. This allowed me to associate words with the pictures. The books set the stage by allowing me to ask questions and think about the direction of the book. -
Tutoring
In 2nd grade I was placed in a specific reading level. My mother asked for ways to improve my reading. She wanted me to succeed and move onto higher levels. My teacher informed her they did not like students to read above the assigned level. My mother sought out a tutor and we worked on the next level reading books. My next assessment placed me in the higher level. I was thrilled! -
Summer Reading Challenge
I was enrolled in my local library's summer reading challenge. I loved the challenge. It kept me busy and provided me with books to start reading and books to help progress in my skills. I would check out the book and receive a sheet with questions about the book. I would turn in the filled out sheet and get my card punched. The questions helped me monitor my comprehension and the punch card monitored books read. -
Combined Class
My school was trying something new. The idea was to combine a class of one grade with a higher grade. My third grade year was being part of a classroom with third and fourth graders. I feel this benefited my reading because of my access to higher grade reading material. This is also the class where I was introduced to independent reading. I loved having the calm moment to pick a book that seemed a bit challenging. -
Gulf War Letters
In 5th grade, my teacher set up a pen pal program. The program was between her students and soldiers in the Gulf War. We would tell them about our days and they would write back. Of course, they kept it clean. It was great! We were hearing about soldiers overseas in the media. This gave us an outlet that was meaningful. Waiting for those letters and getting to read them was a memorable experience. -
Rose Madder
Rose Madder by Stephen King was a big step for me. It was the first book assignment where I was able to choose my own book. I remember my teacher thinking it wasn't appropriate for my age. She knew me. She knew I could handle the level of reading and content. It felt great she believed in me. The book was much more interesting to me than what others chose. My interest led to me creating a great assignment. -
Post-it
I started placing a post-it note on the back of my books. I saw a coworker doing this and thought it was a great idea. I usually would not concern myself when I cam across unfamiliar words while reading. I now write the word on the post-it and look up the word when I have free time. I have also transferred this tool to when I am reading textbooks or something I will be tested on. -
In Class Reading
When I started to go back to school I realized how much I disliked in class reading. When each person in the class reads a section of the textbook or article it does not benefit me. I am a great reader, but my mind will freeze up. The only thing I can focus on is hurrying up. I also don't like being read to. This makes it difficult to obtain any information from others reading their sections. I end up having to read the sections over again. -
Kindle
I received a Kindle for Christmas. I remember thinking it would sit on my nightstand collecting dust. I ended up loving it. It was an amazing invention. I loved how it made it easy to read at anytime, high-light information, book mark pages, and I could replace my post-it tool. I could tap on the word and it would give me information about that word. I no longer needed to wait until I had free time. It made reading a breeze. -
Kindle Death
I had to discard my Kindle. I started to realize it was changing the way I read everything. I was starting to allow errors in what I read and caught myself trying to tap on a word, on my lap top screen. I realized it had impacted my reading when I would become frustrated that I had to look up words, examples, or definitions. I had become used to the convenience and lazy in my reading skills.
