Reading Literacy Narrative

When I was young, reading was something I did for fun. I could read whatever I wanted when I wanted and did not have to worry about an assignment to go along with it. As I started middle school and then moved into high school, reading became one of my least favorite things to do. Now i can barely stand to get through a few chapters in a book. When I was little, my mom always read “Goodnight Moon” to me every night. I do not have children but I do read that same book to my brother that my mom read to me almost every night.. I have become much less interested in reading as I have grown up. The most recent book I have read is called “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet,” which is also my favorite book. Aside from books, I really like reading magazines. I do not listen to audio books because I feel that I am more of a visual learner and comprehend text better when I read it myself.

I have not been taught any reading strategies so far. I normally just go through and highlight what text I think is most important. I do not read a whole section unless I feel the need to do so.. The first thing I do is go through questions along with a passage and determine if I need to read the whole story or if I can just skim. Although reading is not my favorite at all, I know it is beneficial to me and will help me go very far in life.

Reading in college will help me to develop new skills and more advanced writing techniques. I hope to learn new strategies that will help me get one step closer to my goals in the future. Reading, for the most part, is simple for me. I do not have any difficulties when I read as far as I know. I am not a first generation student as my mother and two older sisters have attended college before me.

During my time in English this semester, I have learned a lot of important and useful information that will help me in other English classes as well as into my future. In English class, we wrote several essays about our future plans and goals, and what we needed to do to succeed in our professions. We also wrote about time management which is also important for students in college, as many of them have trouble managing time and organizing priorities. In order to get the students brainstorming, our professor had us take SQ4R notes and Cornell Notes which are both excellent ways to get an essay started. The Cornell Notes were my favorite. It was formatted in an easy way, so that after jotting down the notes we could incorporate it into the essay.

During week 12 of the semester we worked on essay about successful reading strategies. These include going through a paper and re-reading it a few times, taking notes about important information in the reading, and being able to write an essay about what you read. After the completion of this essay, we edited and evaluated them to make sure there were as few mistakes as possible.

I learned lots of new information in English. Writing essays were the most useful. I feel that I have gained more knowledge about academic writing since my transition from high school to college. I learned how to cite my sources properly. It was a struggle at first, but after doing it over and over I fixed my mistakes. I know that I will never be perfect at reading or writing, so writing essays is something I still need to work on. English class will help me in all aspects of my life. The information we learned in our class meeting goes far beyond the classroom. English has prepared my mind for my future profession as well as the rest of my college career.