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My oral language skills developed early. My mother tells me that I started saying simple words when I was around 9 months old. My first word was "dada". It didn't take long for me to follow up with "mama" and "kitty".

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I always delighted in books as a child. My Grandmother always would read me books when she would come over. The one that I remember most was The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. I loved this book so much that I would make my whole family kiss my hand before they would leave the house. I also could recite the book from memory.

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I started reading pretty early into my kindergarten year and once I started, I simply couldn't get enough. I read all the time, even times that probably weren't appropriate, like during church. The only part of reading that I couldn't quite get a hold of was reading out loud to my peers. I would often get anxious about this and would struggle to concentrate on reading. Now that I'm older, I am much better about it.

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In late elementary school, I was completely enthralled with reading. I would breeze through books of all grade levels and I especially liked to read stuff that was at a high school level. I think that I did this because I liked the challenge. I was very good at comprehension of these books and hardly had trouble writing book reports on them. The only real struggle I had with writing was finding my own voice. I still feel as if I struggle with that sometimes but as I finished my time in elementary school, I found myself being proficient in both skills and because of this, in middle school I struggled with boredom.

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I was, and still am, very picky about the books I read. I enjoyed the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series as well as Dork Diaries and The Percy Jackson series. I also found myself at one point obsessed with the Twilight Saga series, which still holds a special place in my heart in a less serious way than back then. I really enjoyed reading The Hunger Games and Divergent too!

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In high school I chose to take many different classes that had be writing. One of these classes was creative writing. I really enjoyed this class as I got to put my ideas down on paper, which is way harder then it sounds. It doesn't help that I am a complete perfectionist so I have a difficult time just letting things be. This class taught be how to pull ideas from my own imagination and use my vocabulary to make these writings come to life. I think this class changed the way I write and to an extent, helped my find my voice.

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I still love reading to this day and I try to do it as much as I can but unfortunately I am very busy and I don't get to read as much as I would like. Currently I am trying to read new things instead of rereading things over and over again. I am starting this journey with the book Dracula by Bram Stoker. This is one of the first classical books that I have tried to read and although it's different then anything else I've tried to read, I really am enjoying. Thanks to me being a college student, I do a lot of academic writing but I don't get much time to write for fun. I try and keep a journal but I don't touch it often. I am excited to see what is in store for me as far as my literacy journey goes!