Reading Literacy
When I was young, still living at home with my parents, reading wasn’t something that was stressed upon us children. I’m not even sure that my parents even realized just how important reading was. Truth is, I do not even really remember reading too many books. This may explain my small vocabulary as an adult. My sister and I attended a two room school in Montana, where I was taught to read using Hooked on Phonics. When I did begin to read, probably sometime in third or fourth grade, I enjoyed reading mystery novels and The Babysitters Club books.
When I began to have children, I knew that I wanted to start them reading at an early age. We had a whole bedtime routine, where I would read to them and they would usually fall asleep somewhere in the middle of the book. My narration must have seemed boring to them. As my children began to get older, they began to read to me. Now, of course, it is not the cool thing to read to your mom before bed. Every night my children read quietly in their rooms for about thirty minutes.
The types of books that I love to read are ones that are based on true stories. I also enjoy reading a good mystery novel, though I have learned to not read these types before I go to bed. My daughter has always loved to read, and has read many of the novels that have been turned into movies. I feel like I would rather just wait till the movie comes out, and go see it. I have been known to read the beginning of a book and then go to the end, just to see if the ending is happy or sad. Call me crazy, but I don’t want to begin reading a book, and then find out that the main character dies at the end.
While in middle school and high school, we had book clubs held after school. The first time I went was because my mom felt that that was something I needed to do. But then, I continued to go to book club because we read some very interesting books, and I liked to hear how others felt about the book we read. Because I joined the book club, it really changed how I felt about reading. I started to enjoy reading on a whole new level.
Based on my past experiences, I am definitely more focused on my education at this point in my life, then I ever was in high school. I see things differently now, I see reading differently now. As a mom, I know how important reading is, and how much it affects not just reading, but every subject in school. I strive to encourage my children to read as much, and as often as they possibly can. I often tell them that they will thank me when they are older.
While in English 111 this semester, we worked on quite a few critical reading strategies. We learned how to properly paraphrase from an article we read. Paraphrasing means to summarize a source in your own words. We learned that when you are finished reading an article, you should close out of the article before beginning to paraphrase. This will ensure that you do not plagiarize. Something I learned, that I did not know before English 111, is that you are technically plagiarizing when you write two words together that were together in the source you read.
This semester of English has taught me the importance of properly using commas. Over time I hope to have even less comma splices (S-3) on my papers. For those people who may not know, a comma splice is the result when two independent clauses are joined together by just a comma. I learned that they need to be made into two separate sentences. The use of commas can greatly impact the whole meaning of the written words. A reader must be aware, when reading, to be sure that they are looking at the commas. This will help in knowing what the writer is really saying. This can determine whether a letter is written as a break up letter, or not.
To say that I have learned a lot would be an understatement. I could go on, and on about the things I have learned this semester. Truth is, there just isn’t enough paper. I am so glad that I have begun this journey to go back to school. I have learned some very valuable strategies to help me on my way to success!