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My First Breath
I was born into the world on June 23, 1995. My literacy journey began! -
Sing-Along Tape Recordings
Head Shoulders Knees and Toes My mom was able to spend a lot of time teaching me and my younger siblings because she was a stay-at-home mom. One of the activities that I remember my mom doing with us was playing educational music from different tapes in our play room. She would always sing-along with it, trying to encourage us to sing too. We listened to these recordings repetitively until we eventually were able to sing the songs without any help. -
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Sing-Along Tape Recordings
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Educational Television Shows
I would watch educational television shows like Sesame Street, Elmo, Barney & Friends, Blue’s Clues, Dora the Explorer, and many more. I really enjoyed watching these shows because I was learning at the same time I was being entertained. Most of these shows helped improve my literacy in some way. My parents would always have one of these shows on while I was growing up. I remember most of them being interactive. For example, they had characters that would say, “Say it with me.” -
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Educational Television Shows
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Reading Buddies
At my school younger students would be paired with older students in order to enhance our reading skills. The older students would listen to the younger students read and help them when they could not say a word. I have experienced both sides of being a buddy. When I was in kindergarten through second grade, I had a reading buddy help me read. Then when I was in sixth through eighth grade, I was the one helping my little buddy how to read. I really enjoyed reading buddies. -
Auditory Learning Center
My kindergarten teacher had learning centers that included all the different subjects. I remember the auditory learning center very clearly for some reason. The table was big enough for four students to sit around and have their own listening head set. Depending on our reading level, students listened to different books being read to them through the headset. We would have the book out in front of us and followed along with the voice coming through our headsets. -
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Reading Buddies
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Daily Journal
In second grade, my teacher gave us all yellow journals that we would be writing in for the whole school year. Every morning when we would walk into class, she would have a prompt written on the front board that we would have to write about in our journal for that day. For example, one of the prompts were, “If you could invent anything in the world, what would it be?” I remember writing about how I would invent a bubble machine. Later that day, she had us create our invention using supplies. -
Playing Teacher
I played teacher with my siblings starting in 2nd grade all the up until about 5th grade. I have three younger siblings so I would always have one willing to be my student for the day. We had a variety of books in my house to choose from. I would usually grab a few and read them to my siblings. As I read, I would stop and ask them questions about what was happening in the book. After I got done reading a book, I would write their homework up on my little marker board easel. -
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Playing Teacher
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Sparkle
My fourth grade teacher always had us play this spelling game called sparkle. We would play this game before a spelling test as a type of review. In order to play this game, we all stood up in a circle around the table in our room. She would say one of our spelling words and then one person would start it off by saying the first letter of the word. The next person would say the following letter and so forth. When the last letter of the word was said, the next person would say sparkle. -
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Reading Buddies
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Board Races
In seventh and eighth grade, we would have board races based on grammar. My teacher would include the new material that we were learning about along with previous grammar knowledge. For example, if we were working on pronouns, she would read us a sentence and we would have to copy the same exact sentence onto the chalkboard and underline the pronouns used in that sentence. Sometimes there would purposely be mistakes in the sentences she read so we would have to fix them. -
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Board Races
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Lector
I was a lector for my church at St. Rose. I would be assigned a specific day that I would be the reader. I was usually assigned on Saturday evenings, which is the mass that my family and I usually attended. When I volunteered to do this for my church, they gave me a book filled with all the readings for that specific year. This way I could practice reading through it before I had to read it in front of the whole church congregation. -
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Lector
I was excited to do this for my church because it gave me the chance to get up in front of about one hundred people and speak. Even though I was reading from a book, not my own words, I still had to build up the confidence in my reading abilities. For example, some words were very unfamiliar to me so I had to make sure I practiced the pronunciation enough so I could clearly read it to my church. -
Long Research Paper
My senior year of high school, I had to write my longest paper yet, eight to ten pages. My research paper was on a specific topic related to bipolar disorder. I remember researching the case of Rebecca Riley to support my argument that medication is not the only answer to helping people with this disorder. For this paper, I had to research a variety of different topics related to bipolar disorder like psychology, symptoms, treatments, etc. This paper allowed me to expand on my writing skills. -
COM 110
My freshman year of college I took COM 110 which was my first college course that had me get up in front of the class and speak. I was extremely nervous to take this course because I did not know many of my classmates. I took a speech class in high school but I knew everyone in my class so I was less nervous to get up in front of them and speak. My high school speech class did help me prepare for COM 110. Overall, I consider myself a better speaker becaue of this course. -
Keep on Learning!
My literacy timeline is not over just yet. I am still learning new things each and every day. Whether it be a new word, writing technique, etc. I am still learning. The picture attached contains building blocks underneath the person that are helping him or her get closer and closer to reaching the stars. It sums up my literacy history because I used to hate literacy. As I got older and learned more about each aspect, I enjoy literacy now and everything that is has taught me over the years.
