Literacy Timeline

1^st grade – Loved picture books. Had a hard time figuring out words. Terrible speller. Read signs and billboards in long car rides going on vacation trying to link pictures and symbols to words.

2^nd grade – Was in reading support all though second grade. Worked on spelling and reading. Helped me a lot.

3^rd grade – I didn’t mind reading, but it was torcher to do SSR and reading logs. I wanted to read at my own pace, I did not want to make it a chore.

4^th grade – Read Michigan chiller books, they’re my all time favorite chapter books. Still a terrible speller.

5^th grade – Spelling finally clicked. I think it was from reading and paying attention on how words came together.

All throughout elementary school my friend Jessie and I would practice our spelling together and make up our own spelling test. I like to be competitive so it helped me become a better speller because I wanted to win the spelling contest.

6^th, 7^th and 8^th grade – SSR was required and once again I lost all interest in reading. Reading was a major chore for me. I realized reading was a requirement so make the best of it, and try to understand what is happening.

All throughout middle school my mom would sit down with me when I had an English paper and she would go over all my errors in red pen. I became a better writer.

9^th grade – Writing was fun and I loved my English class. Mrs. Baldson was my teacher and she always a way of making English fun. I liked how the books we read usually had a movie to go along with it so I could make visuals.

10^th grade – Leaning about American literature was interesting.

11^th grade – I did not like language arts at all. I did not like learning about British literature nor did I like reading about it. It was a lullaby for me and I wanted no part of it.

12^th grade – Mrs. Corbett, my English teacher, taught me how to go over parts of a book I did not understand. She also told me to use sticky notes when I read to make notes and write down any questions I had in my reading. I love the sticky note method.

I was in DECA and had to write a 30-page research paper with barley any guidelines. That challenged me to use my writing skills that I have acquired over the years. It paid off because I had the highest score at state competition and went on to international competition where I placed well.

TODAY - As long as a book can keep my attention I don’t mind reading, if it doesn’t I have a really hard time focusing. Writing has become easy for me because of my spelling test, and revising with my mom.