Literacy Autobiography

     When I was very young my mom was a single working parent.  I spent most of my time at my grandparents’ house.  My grandmother was, and still is, an avid reader.  I remember my grandma always sitting in her big brown 1970’s recliner, with her glasses on, reading some huge book.  My grandma knew all the answers to all the questions.  I would watch Jeopardy with her, and I couldn’t even understand the questions (or was it the answers?) but my grandma knew them all.  Growing up I never understood why she wasn’t on Jeopardy and told everyone if I was going to be on Who Wants to be a Millionaire she was my number one life-line (she still is metaphorically speaking).  Simply put, my grandma was a genius.  She was smarter than anyone else I knew.  When I would ask her how she got so smart, she would always tell me she read… A LOT.  My grandma was wise, elegant, well mannered, and virtuous.  I wanted to be like her.  I wanted to read all the time just like her.   In contrast I did not want to be like my mom.  My mom did not seem, to me, to have all the qualities my grandmother had. Things must have skipped a generation.  My mom told me she “hated to read.”  That was fine, because I spent most of my time with my idol, my grandma.  Thinking back, my grandma was an excellent reading model for me, and I owe most of my success in reading and in life to her.

Me with my first teacher, Grammy

                I remember my grandma reading novels I thought were HUGE.  She especially liked mysteries and would tell me about them.  She had Reader’s Digest delivered to the house.  She had magazines like People delivered to the house.  My grandfather was a reader too.  I remember he would read the newspaper religiously.  He would always talk to my grandma and me about what he was reading in “the Journal.” 

                                    

 I remember my grandma reading to me at a very young age, definitely before I started pre-school.  My favorite book to read with my grandma was a Little Critters book named Just Grandma and Me.  The book was a little critter telling the story of a day at the beach with grandma.  I remember loving the book and especially the illustrations.  I think I liked the book because my grandma took me to Point Pleasant in the summertime, so I could relate to the story.  That had to be a book I “pretend read” with my grandma until I could really read it on my own.  I still have my original copy today.  My grandma also taught/modeled for me that books were something to be taken care of.  Bent pages and ripped covers were a no-no.  My grandma has given me books as a gift often, from when I was very young until today.  If I wanted to read it, she would buy it.  She always encouraged me to read.

I remember going into school being ahead of the other kids.  Thinking back now I know I have grandma to thank for that.  She is the only “reading teacher” that I remember from my early childhood.  I know I had reading classes early in school, but I don’t remember much about them.  I probably don’t remember that much because I was bored most of the time.  Once I was in about 4^th grade I was put in the Enrichment (gifted and talented) class and I got to read books that were more challenging for me.  Thinking back on this, I can see how important differentiating instruction is.  If it’s too hard kids don’t like it, if it’s too easy kids don’t like it.  Besides Enrichment, I also remember being motivated to read by incentive programs like Book It.  I am a competitive person, and if there was a prize to be won, I was going to try to win it.  Book It was sponsored by Pizza Hut.  If you read a certain amount of books (extra books on your own in addition to homework) and did book reports on them you would get a certificate for a free personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut.  I remember, once again, Grandma always taking me there for dinner to cash in my Book It certificates.  Not only was this a reward because of the pizza but because of the “just grandma and me time.”  Again, I can see how incentive programs would motivate a kid that can already read and is good at it, it may not really work for a struggling reader who “hates” reading.

            

     My grandma truly instilled a love of reading in me.  In school reading or language arts was always my favorite subject.  I am not sure if I liked reading because I was good at it, or I was good at reading because I liked it.  I think it was a little bit of both.  I remember reading for pleasure since I was young and still do today.  I remember liking to read at an age when it wasn’t considered cool.  At sixteen most people do not think reading is as cool as when they are in their thirties.  My dad still talks about once when he called me to see what I was doing.  I was in high school.  I told him I was laying in my room reading.  It was a Friday night.  He was amazed.  He always tells me he knew then I was definitely going down a different and probably better path than he took.  Somewhere around 4^th grade I LOVED to read the Goosebumps books.  I would read entire books in one day, which was a feat when you’re in 4th or 5^th grade.  I remember loving the suspense.  Almost every chapter of those books ends in a cliffhanger.  I needed to know what happened.  I still do.   I enjoy suspenseful books today.

                I also enjoyed writing from a young age and loved making up my own stories.  I remember people telling me I had a good imagination.  I’ve heard that if you want to be a better writer, read more.  I think this is true.  I feel like my imagination and writing ability grew the more I read.  My grandma would always help me with little “projects” I did like writing my own stories or making my own book in addition to my regular homework.  The only part about writing that I hated was penmanship.  In the primary grades my handwriting was awful and I remember this was my only deterrent in school and writing in general.    

             

           The teachers I really remember helping me with my literacy development were in middle school and high school.  I feel like these are the first “reading” teachers that stand out because this is when they started teaching things I might need to try harder at.  Deeper meanings were being pulled from the texts we were reading.   I had two fantastic English teachers in high school (my freshman and senior year).  I would credit the fact that I wanted to become an English teacher partly to them.  They were eccentric, funny, entertaining, enthusiast, and in my mind, brilliant.  I was never bored in their classes.  They made even learning vocabulary a theatrical event.  Reading classical texts with them seemed more "adult" and sophisticated than anything I had done in school before.  They challenged us to read between the lines, to really read for deeper meaning for the first time.  I do not remember a lot of reading in my content area classes, except for History.  I always liked History classes as well because it was like reading the stories of the past.  It was always easier for me to figure out and remember what I was reading, it was always much more difficult for me to figure out an equation in Math or Science.  I do remember being offered extra credit for reading in some Science classes, such as doing a report on books about Charles Darwin (which I did of course being an English-geek/bookworm).  

    In middle school into college is when I started having those light bulb moments in English classes.  I loved trying to solve the puzzles in literature, what was the author really trying to say?   I remember reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth in high school and loving it (it may have helped that I had already heard the famous quote "Out damned spot!" a few times from none other than Grammy).  Trying to figure out what Shakespeare was saying and everything that went behind his words was like solving a math equation for me.  This prompted me to take a few Shakespeare classes in college.  The classes were difficult at times but this was when I really started to become amazed with what someone could do with words, from the form and function to the feelings they could evoke.  

  

                One thing I have notice throughout my literacy development is that now, the older I get, the more I read on my own for informational purposes and not just pure entertainment.   Today with the internet being so easily accessible when I am interested in something or what to know something I can just pull out my iPhone.  I no longer have to go with grandma into the attic and look it up in her brown paper bag covered set of Encyclopedia Britannica.  I am still just as competitive as when I was reading books to win free personal pan pizzas.  The Good Reads app/website has inspired me to read more for pleasure as an adult.