Brian Bell
English 111
August 30th, 2015
Reading Literacy
Literacy Narrative
My parents read to me on occasion, it was not a daily occurence. They
stopped reading to me around the age that I started to read myself, about five
or so. They wanted to make sure that I had a good handle on it and did not
want to stunt my growth as a read. When I was little my parents would read to
me books like, “If you give a mouse a cookie” and “Corduroy”, which I really
enjoyed. We still have those very books to this day. I do not have children of my
own, but I plan on reading to them very often, so that they learn to have a
passion for books.
Personally, throughout my school years I learned to find the answers
using context clues and from skimming the passages, this was a method that I
adopted to help with my slow test taking and small attention span. The basic
reading strategies that I was taught were the context clues and to go back a
sentence if I couldn’t find the answer right away. These were only to be used for
the long passages during test though, not when reading a book for homework,
but I did it then anyway.
I wish that I had more of an appreciation for books, but years of movies
and video games have made me a very visual person, so I tend to be bored
when staring at a page full of text and nothing else. Recently, I have gotten
more into reading, which is something I am very happy about. I tend to read
Horror novels or Science Fiction books, like the works of H.P. Lovecraft or
Stephen King. A book that I am reading now is a mix of horror and comedy,
which has kept me very interested. I’ve noticed that if something is funny, I tend
to pay more attention and read more of it. If I am not reading books, then I read
comic books or graphic novels. I have never listened to any audiobooks, but I
have heard a few short stories, which I liked. I know that you can find a plethora
of them at Barnes & Nobel or Amazon.com.
I have found that being able to fully comprehend all of the words and
phrases used in the text books have definitely helped me in my high school and
middle school experiences. It was especially useful during History classes
when you would have to define all of the keywords found in every chapter. I
expect that being able to read well and understanding the text will help
exponentially in college. It will certainly pay off when taking notes off of the
board, while the professor is lecturing.
I do not have any diagnosed reading disabilities, but I am going to be
tested for ADD soon. I have a little thing with questions while taking tests,
though. I tend to have to re-read the question multiple times before I fully
understand it. Test are the only time this happens, so I assume it has to do with
stress and worrying if I will have enough time.