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Earliest Memory of Reading: Age 3 or Under

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Earliest Memory of Reading: Age 3 or Under

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My earliest memory of reading is before I learned how to read. My family members used to read me books all the time. My grandpa loved to read to me the most, my favorite book that he read to me was "Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type!"

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I learned to read and write at my local public library. I attended groups before preschool where we learned letters, phonics, and basic reading and writing skills.

At home, my family was also helping me learn. I remember my Nana taught my cousin and I how to spell our names using a song. Mine was "J-O-E-L-L-A, Joella, Joella" and my cousin's was the same except with her name.

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At preschool I was able to develop my reading and writing skills even more. By then, I knew the entire alphabet in order, and was great at writing letters and numbers!

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During this time I learned how to read and write basic sentences in school.

At home, I began to use my writing skills with my family. I remember writing my mom notes saying things like "I love you," and leaving them for her to find around the house.

I used to love writing on the small chalkboard that I had in my playroom. Above is a message I wrote on that chalkboard!

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By now I was writing better sentences. I remember an assignment that we had to do in school, which was writing a letter to our mom for Mother's Day. My mom was so excited when I showed it to her that afternoon! After that, I continued writing letters. Above is a letter I wrote to Santa!

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I now loved reading books by myself. "Goodnight Moon," "Harold and the Purple Crayon," and "Pinkalicious" were my absolute favorites!

Still, I loved when my family members read to me. My grandpa always had the best books!

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In 3rd grade, I really started to enjoy reading because of my teacher. She had a classroom library that I used to borrow from every day. She let me pick out anything I wanted, and helped me develop my reading skills even further so that I could read almost every word in each of the books. I remember reading a book about a man that walked across the entire United States, which I found very amazing.

In this grade my school also started a reading program called Lexia. I loved to read but I disliked this program so much. I used to dread doing it during the week and for homework.

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Reading became one of my favorite things to do. I could now read chapter books, and sometimes I finished them in a single day. My favorites were Dork Diaries, Geronimo Stitlon's mouse detective series, and Boxcar Children.

In school, I loved studying for spelling tests throughout the week and doing them each Friday. I always tried my best on them and was ecstatic when I got the bonus words correct!

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I remember really getting into writing in school. One day, we had to write a persuasive essay stating why we deserved extra recess time. I remember learning about each paragraph: the introduction, body, and conclusion. For our template, we used a burger. The introduction and conclusion were the buns and the body was the ingredients.

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I remember my ELA class being my favorite in this grade. We reviewed sentence components such as adjectives, nouns, proper nouns, conjunctions, etc. In this class we read "A Long Walk to Water" and "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas." I still recall the heartbreak I felt when reading "A Boy in the Striped Pajamas."

This is also when I started going back to my local library and checking out books. I could have spent hours looking through each aisle to find what I wanted. I remember picking out a book from the Smile Series and going back for the next book right after finishing one.

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In this grade, history was my favorite subject. We were learning about ancient civilizations, and I loved to read each textbook chapter that we went over. Ancient Egypt was my favorite because of how grand their civilization was and how much they accomplished without the use of technology.

I started to really enjoy doing projects and using platforms like Google Slides to write about what I was learning.

During this time, my little sister was learning to read. This is where I started to love teaching because I was able to help her learn literacy skills.

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In this grade, I had the same teacher I had in 6th grade. I loved her class and she had such a huge impact on my reading and writing. For this class, we wrote a letter to our future selves. She kept it in her classroom until graduation, where we got to open them after we walked the stage. It was so emotional and I am so grateful of how much she has impacted not just my literary journey, but also my life.

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During this year the pandemic started, and I had to do all of my schoolwork online.

However, the pandemic gave me a lot of time at home, so I had time to really get into reading and analyzing my Bible. I got a brand new pink one that I still use to this day. I used special highlighters made for the Bible and kept a notebook for writing what I learned, and my prayers.

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This year I got back to school in-person. In my ELA class, I remember starting to write college level essays. I recall how difficult I thought MLA format was to remember. We read Frankenstein and wrote an essay over it.

At home, I began to keep a journal that I wrote in each day. This was my favorite way to write, and it allowed me to reflect on my emotions. From this point, I started making a journal for each year of my life and keeping them stored in my closet.

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In this grade, I started focusing a lot on college and developing my literacy skills to get onto the level I needed to be on. I took my first college courses through a program my school had, one of them being English 100, another being American History.

In English 100, we had to write essays in MLA format, in American History, we had to write essays in APA format. Being in these classes helped familiarize me with college writing and reading. I remember analyzing Macbeth for my English 100 class and a few people in the class each reading a part in the play.

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In this grade I took another few college courses. I remember a time in my English 102 class where my teacher said that he could find no issues with my essay and he loved it. It was an essay on whether Disney princesses were a good influence on children. I was so proud of myself and ecstatic that I finally became a comfortably college level writer.

At home, I started to read using my Amazon Kindle app. It introduced me to a ton of novels, and I began to love the mystery/thriller category. My favorite author was, and still is, Frieda McFadden. I also loved "The Summer I Turned Pretty" by Jenny Han, especially because of the show.

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I developed my love of teaching literacy when observing a kindergarten class last semester. I especially loved teaching phonics and seeing each student's progress.

I was not taking any English classes, so I read a lot using my Kindle app. I went through a different book every few days, sometimes in a single day. The thriller category continues to be my favorite because I love to find out who the culprit was and being on the edge of my seat as I read. The books filled with twists and turns are my favorites.

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Currently I am taking three different English classes. Each one is very enjoyable for me because I love to read and write. In one class, I am analyzing books each week, which I have not done since my senior year of high school. It is challenging, but I am learning more with each assignment and I am able to apply that in my CED 300 class.

In that class, I am placed in a 3rd grade classroom. Many of the students are below-grade level, and I get to help that group of students during phonics groups. I really enjoy teaching literacy and helping those students develop those skills. I am seeing improvement with each week, so it is a very rewarding experience.

Since I am in 3 English classes, I do not read much outside of school, but I really enjoy the books I am reading and what I am writing about it each class.