Literacy Autobiography
Literacy impacts everyone’s life in some capacity. For some it’s a positive moment showing them why reading is important. For others, it’s a negative moment that shows them that maybe there are more important things in life than reading. In my own experience it seems as if the more a kid is forced to read by his teachers and parents the more he grows to resent it. However when a kid isn’t forced to read and can learn on his or her own it can become much more inspiring. As young kids in school, literacy affects all of us one way or another. For some, getting that great teacher can inspire someone to be very successful later on in life. For others, being unfortunate enough not to have that inspiring teacher, literacy can be very difficult and reading is considered a chore or even work. Most kids throughout grade school fall somewhere in the middle of all this. Reading is a part of most people’s daily lives even if they don’t know it. The more you read the better you will get at it. People who read books daily can read and comprehend much faster than those who read less often. Most students however don’t read just to get better at it. Even if you don’t read books daily most people read magazines, internet articles and even signs that allow literacy to be a part of most people’s everyday lives. When I was younger I had a moment that probably defined the way I view literacy even to the present day. My literacy moment came many years ago, a story that should teach people that there truly are no shortcuts in school or in life.
Whenever I think of the topic of literacy I remember when I was in second grade. Yes I was only seven but I believe what happened in second grade really impacted the way I look at books and other types of literature. I learned how to read when I was three years old and my parents always say that I really loved to read. They even told me that I knew how to read before I even knew how to fully talk which is very unusual. I have been in school for nearly fifteen years now and when I think of my worst teacher throughout all of grade school. I think of my second grade teacher, Mrs. Lombardi. She was really mean to everyone in the class especially me. The one thing I remember about her was that, she would always tell our class that she was 108 years old and we all believed her. I remember that she retired after the school year and told us our class was the reason she retired which made me feel really bad. If she really wasn’t 108 years old she was pretty close as she retired the following year. She always yelled at me because I had a hard time following directions but most kids in the class did. After all we were seven. Anyway when I think of how I view literacy I think of a contest that was held in our second grade class at the end of the year.
Halfway through the year our teacher had us participate in a school wide contest for all second graders. It was a contest to see whoever could read the most books and at the end of the year the school would make a t-shirt that said how many book we had read. All the t-shirts were white except for the person who read the most books who would get a green shirt. The student who won would also get his picture in the school newspaper. It didn’t seem like much now but back then everyone wanted to win the contest. Most teachers had left a list of appropriate books that would count toward the tally. Then after you read the book you would have to write a short report on it so the teacher would know that you really read it. Our teacher wasn’t like most teachers. We had no list, no report to do and the tally at the end of the year reflected that. Most of these kids in other second grade classes came in to class for the final day with t- shirts that said these kids they read about 40- 50 books. Some kids in our class had t- shirts that said that the 8 year olds in my class had read 200 books or something. Now anybody with half a brain knew that no 2nd grader could read 200 books in half a year. Their weren’t even 200 books on the approved list of books to read. Some of the kids in my class probably didn’t even know how to read. I came in with a t- shirt that said I had read 365 books. Yes that means I had won the green t-shirt and had my picture in the paper that day. I remember that my parents were very proud of me but I felt guilty thinking someone should know that I didn’t really read 365 books. Most of the books I read were baby books or didn’t even exist. I never did get caught for it though and none of the other kids in my class did either. For whatever reason a group of a underachieving eight years reading thousands of books as a group wasn’t a red flag to anyone including the principal. Most of the books on each kids list weren’t real names of books or authors. We just had to get someone to sign the bottom of the sheet to acknowledge all of the books we had read. I had my Grandma who was visiting for the week in Florida sign the sheet and I had done a task that no eight old from Flower Hill Primary School ever did, read 365 books. The last thing I remember from that time is that they gave my teacher a big plaque because her class had read the most books. The only reason our class even won is because she didn’t care enough about her job to even follow the rules. I’m sure for kids in the other 2nd grade classes they probably learned something from the experience and most of them are probably really good readers. Literacy is defined as the ability to read for knowledge and in a world where knowledge is considered a type of power, it is vital to be as knowledgeable as you can.
The thing I took out of this whole experience was that reading was considered to be a chore or even work and that there were ways to beat the system like my whole 2nd grade class did. Doing things such as reading easier books or looking up cheat sheets on the internet such as sparknotes may seem easier without any real risk now but those things catch up with you after a while. The kids who throughout school read every book they were supposed are probably a lot better off now in college than the kids who didn’t. From that experience I realized that throughout high school a majority of teachers couldn’t tell or didn’t care enough to know if a student had read the assigned reading. For the most part I read all the books that were assigned to me in grade school. However for the times that I didn’t I learned that their really wasn’t any punishment if I had skimmed the reading. I really believe one of the things I have learned in the school system is without saying it the school has “encouraged” behavior like this. If I had been caught along with the rest of my class on this book issue, their probably wouldn’t have been any consequences. My teacher wanted us to cheat to get herself a bonus if we won. Cheat sheets such as spark notes had gotten me pretty far back home in the Huntington Public school system. Throughout all of grade school using these methods like spark notes instead of reading the books were much easier and teachers never really learned the difference. This worked out especially well when we got into higher grades and began reading things like Shakespeare which would have been extremely difficult to comprehend without using the Internet. While that helped me get good grades, I wasn’t able to retain any of the knowledge that I had learned in school. That’s why in Literacy it is very important not to take any shortcuts because in life there are no shortcuts as everything catches up to you eventually.
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