Jeremy’s Literacy Narrative

Growing up reading wasn’t really my thing. If I’m being honest at some points I hated reading because it bored me and every time I started I just wanted to be done. Though I had such a strong dislike for reading I wasn’t necessarily bad at it. In fact, when I first started to learn how to read, I was one of the best in my class if not the best. I don’t mean to brag but it is just weird to think that at one point I was a pretty good reader even though I didn’t really enjoy the subject. The sad thing was as I grew up I started to lose all interest in reading. One of the reasons I think I may have lost interest completely was because of how good I was at reading. Since I was always at the top of the class the teachers didn’t really push me too hard because I was above where I needed to be. So I guess at that point I took it upon myself to just stop reading period.

In pre-K I had always enjoyed reading Dr. Seuss and books of that sort. As I went up in grades, I was always able to find a book series that I liked. Some of these were Geronimo Stilton and Captain Underpants. I guess I liked these because they were fictional, and the characters would do things that I couldn’t, so I saw it as an escape from the real world. Some of these characters were able to fly or were really smart and able to figure out how to get out of sticky situations. I always admired these characters and their unique abilities because in a way I wanted to be like them. But eventually this enjoyment would come to an end. Fourth grade was where I first started to stop enjoying my reading. I would fill my reading log in and just skim the pages or read the back so I could have a general understand of what the book was about. Even though my teacher never really checked up on me to see if I was doing the readings or not my reading level didn’t decline. This could have also been a reason why I didn’t like reading. If my teacher didn’t care if I read or not then clearly I wasn’t going to care. I had teachers who showed no interest in reading and would have everyone just grab a book and silent read while they graded other work. I had other teachers that just enjoyed teaching other subjects over reading. Throughout this time I was lost and discouraged. At the time I felt like my reading was still up to par because was when we had to do in class reading assessments I always did well. But this could just be a result of teachers that didn’t care too much for English or teaching it. Either way, I got away with not doing the work and moved on to the next year.

Once I got to the fifth grade, my like for reading had reached zero to none. This wasn’t because I couldn’t read or anything of that sort. Like I said before I could still hold me own against a book. It was more because the books I was required to read started to have less and less pictures in them. For me personally I took this as some more work to do. I liked the pictures because they helped me envision what was going on in the story. It helped with my imagination and believing that some things in the story might actually be possible. That wasn’t the only reason why I chose not to read though. I did get lazy and decide that I only wanted to read books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and ridiculous books like that. My teacher whose name was Mrs. Jimenez eventually banned us from counting those books toward our reading hours. By then I had almost given up completely. It eventually got to the point where I wouldn’t read books and just lied and said I did. I gave up because I thought there was no enjoyment to be found in reading and I felt as though it were a waste of time. All the reading I had done in the past allowed me to be free minded and now I felt imprisoned whenever I read a book. I was in need of some big help if I was to ever like reading again.

Mrs. Jimenez eventually caught on so one day she sat me down and asked me what things interested me. I don’t really remember what I said I did and didn’t like but she told me stay where I was and returned a few minutes later with a book in her hand. This book was titled the Lightning Thief. I still remembered when I first saw the book. I was confused because I thought the cover looked boring. On the cover there was a boy standing in water with some strange objects in his hand. He appeared to be looking up to the sky scrapers and the sky. I immediately thought this was going to be awful but I gave it a shot. This was a series about a boy who was a demi-god and had to return Zeus’s thunderbolt back to Mount Olympus in order to save the world. I ended up falling in love with the series and I was so happy I had found it. I think it was because I felt like I could personally relate to the character since he was from New York City just like me. He was also a very determined individual and cared about his friends and others. He was an unselfish character in many ways and that is why I admired him so much. From that point on I tried to find books with characters that I personally liked. I knew that if I liked the characters then it would make the time I spent reading a whole lot easier.

I think I personally owe Mrs. Jimenez a big thank you. If it wasn’t for her then I would not have been able to get back into reading and see it from a different perspective. At the same time, my opinion on reading itself didn’t change. I still saw it as a burden in many ways. But I knew that if I found a genre that I personally enjoyed or a character I could relate to then I wouldn’t mind reading at all. That is what I took from Mrs. Jimenez and my 5th grade year. I learned to be more open when reading and not give up on a book after the first 10 pages. I learned to value the importance of reading and the knowledge that comes with it. This skill allowed me to be more successful and prosper in my English classes for years to come. It also allowed me to enjoy books that when I first started bored me to death. This is a message that I hope everyone gets to learn. Sometimes reading can be frustrating to the reader but I promise if you are able to find a book about something that you will actually enjoy, it while learning something at the same.