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The First Book I Learned to Read
The first book I learned to read was Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. I was about eight years old and I specifically remember this memory because I was in the doctor's office when I successfully read a book by myself with little help for the first time. -
Why Does Nothing Make Sense?
Reading does not seem to come easy to me. Not only do I take twice as long to read as my classmates, but I also can't seem to remember what I just read. -
Diagnosed with Dyslexia
It had become apparent to my teachers that reading was not my strong suit and began keeping a record of my writing samples and reading samples to give to my parents to bring to a specialist. Most of my letters were written back words or switched around with another letter and I did not progress from Dr. Seuss books within the 2 years of learning how to read. -
Special Ed Reading Class
I was put into a special education course primarily focused on reading and writing. This class was not separate from the other children but was combined into one class, with an extra teacher, just for us, to help us pay attention and to correct us when we were asked to read out loud to the class. -
Tutoring
I was not showing much progress in reading so my parents got me an after-school tutor to help me with comprehension and to get me to practice reading. This tutor was not someone who specialized to help children with reading, it was an older student who was 15 years old, who I also went to school with a year later. -
I Started to Hate Reading
Reading started to become more and more of a chore. My parents and teachers started to get frustrated with me, which only made me frustrated at them and at reading. I was told that I had a first-grade reading level at the age of 13. This just wasn't something said to my parents, my teacher said this to me like it was something that was my fault and If I didn't get it together I wouldn't make it to high school. -
Manga Made it Make Sense
If you haven't read manga before then you probably don't know that their books are backwards. They start from the left to right instead of right to left. These were the first books that I actually enjoyed reading and they kept the jumbling of letters under control. -
Manga was Banned from my Reading List
My Teachers and Parents thought that Manga was only going to prolong my learning disability and I was no longer allowed to check them out at school or read them at home. -
I Refused to Read Out loud
Not only did I feel like my teachers weren't actually helping me with reading but classmates would laugh if I read a work wrong, couldn't read a word, or if I studdered. Teachers would always call on me because they thought they were helping but they weren't. This was looked at as disruptive to the class and insubordinate to the teachers. -
The Kind of Reader I am Today
I still hate reading. I only had one good experience when it came to reading and that got taken away from me. As an adult now with Dyslexia I can still feel the emotional damage learning to read did. I still don't want to read let alone out loud to anyone because I don't want them to assume it's because I don't know how to read. This has been an issue for me in my career seeing how I'm trying to become a teacher, which requires a lot of standing up in front of people and reading.