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The first and earliest memory I can recall of reading a book is in 2009 where my mom read a Spanish translated version of “Love You Forever” to me and my siblings. -
I remember finding my older siblings' small collection of the “Spot” books series. I would look through the pictures in the book before my siblings would find me and later read the books to and with me, having me practice a bit of reading. -
When entering kindergarten one of the first books I recall being read to us was “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”. The way my kindergarten teacher read the book to us out loud was memorable since she’d make us say, “Chika Chika Boom Boom” part as a group, making it engaging as a young kid and wanting to share the book with my older siblings that day. -
”The Kissing Hand” was the first book that I read out loud to my younger brother without the help of my siblings once I had come back from school since we were allowed to take a book home. I remember imitating the way my first grade teacher had read the book to us and occasionally pausing to let my younger brother see the pictures since I really liked them. -
The first chapter book I remember reading was the first book in the Magic Tree House series. My first-grade teacher read the book out loud to my class and encouraged us to begin reading longer books similar to the Magic Tree House after story time. -
After my teacher read the book “Chrysanthemum” in class, my obsession with Kevin Henke's books began. Reading many of his books on my own improved my reading skills since I was eager to read his stories with his mouse characters and his stories contained a bit more complex vocabulary. -
I remember seeing Dr. Seuss books before at home since my siblings would bring them from school although I wouldn’t read them until later when I saw the familiar cover of "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” in my second-grade teacher's student bookshelf. After reading the book, I began to read more Dr. Seuss books and learned about rhymes and more complex vocabulary. -
One of the first chapter books I read on my own was “The BFG”. I remember being a little nervous due to the book not containing many illustrations besides the cover. After finishing “The BFG" and enjoying the book, it led to me reading more books by Roald Dahl, slowly becoming more comfortable with chapter books. -
In third grade, once we began learning about using descriptive words, specifically for people, my third-grade teacher encouraged us to read the "My Weird School” series. I remember finding it nice that there were pictures being included in chapter books again because of this series, especially since the book used specific vocabulary to describe how the teacher behaved and looked like, improving my writing and comprehension. -
The “I survived" series was my introduction to non-fiction books writing about important events that happened in the real world, especially if they were events that impacted many lives in tragic ways. Through these books I was able to learn more about historic events but also grow a bit more comfortable with books that were about heavier themes. -
Reading the “Harry Potter” series after only having watched the movies growing up helped me learn how to visualize things in my head based on the imagery and descriptive writing. It was also pleasant reading some extra things in the book that weren’t included in the series or changed. -
Reading “Thank You Mr. Falker” helped me learn more about authors writing stories based on their own experiences but that of others too in a different point of view. Considering Patricia Polacco's writing uses words in a more poetic format, analyzing and interpreting her vocabulary and its meaning was a good learning experience to further grow my comprehension. -
We began reading poems for the English unit of my high school, specifically Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare. I was familiar with words and vocabulary being able to be used in a poetic format although due to the poets we were analyzing being from an era from a long time ago their words were a little confusing at times and hard to understand. -
I ended up having an experience in high school that would slightly change my attitude towards reading. One of my teachers had told me that as a soon to be adult, reading books with illustrations would do more harm than good so I slightly lost interest feeling bad about my preferences, especially since I enjoyed books with illustrations and thought they were a wonderful way to help create a visual for readers who may occasionally struggle. -
During the summer after graduating I decided to read books based on what interested me to try and get myself into reading again. I started visiting my local library again and was able to move past that comment that had changed my attitude towards reading.