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Bed time stories
My mom would always read to us ever since I was a little girl. I feel that this early exposure to reading helped me with language development and is probably a big part of why I like to read so much today. -
Story Time
I can recall my Kindergarten teacher hosting a story time every other day. She would always be so energetic and excited to share new books with the class. I felt that her excitement was contagious, and I would find myself getting excited to see what new book she was going to share next time. -
Bilingual reading
When we moved back to California after a year of living in Mexico, my parents enrolled me in a bilingual elementary school. It was challenging but fun to start learning to speak and read in English. I loved getting to use books that had both languages in them. -
English Only!
We moved to Las Vegas half-way into my first-grade school year, and I no longer had the supports I was accustomed to in my old school. I struggled to communicate with my peers, my teacher, and fell behind academically. Reading no longer was enjoyable for me, since I couldn't understand it or really even read English at all. -
Reading? No, thank you!
I would avoid having to read out loud. My worst nightmare was being called on in class to read even the simplest of questions. -
You can do this!
My teacher Mrs. Taylor saw that I was struggling but still pushed me and encouraged me to keep trying to read. She would give me books to take home from her library to practice reading. She even gifted me a book for my birthday and one for Christmas. I still own those books to this day. -
EL learner program
I continued to fall behind and ended up in an ELL program where I was taken out of the classroom 2-3 times a week to work on my reading and language skills. -
Practice, practice, practice!
My mom would have me practice reading every single day! She would have me read books during vacations and would have me copy chapters every weekend. She didn't know very much English but would push me to get better and practice as much as I could. -
Free at last, free at last!
I was finally able to catch up and reach the academic goals necessary to no longer need the ELL program. Reading was no longer something that I hated to do. Little by little I ended up finding my love of books once again. -
I love to read! Reading is my hobby.
Although my journey with reading had several ups and downs, I can honestly say that I love to read. It is one of my favorite hobbies! I am always on the hunt for new books, and love following accounts on social media that talk about current books they have read. It wasn't easy getting to this point. Things could have been very different, but the support I had from several of my teachers and from my parents made all the difference.