Baldip Singh
English 1101
Professor B. Jewell
My Personal Experience
An unfortunate experience that I have had with reading was doing a presentation and panicking. It was a really bad experience because it took me a really long time to get over it. It happened in the beginning of fourth grade so I didn’t even know anyone making the whole situation ten times worse. We were told to write about our summer and the best thing about it. I was really excited to write about mine because I had gone to Splish Splash and it was a really fun experience for me. The day that we were supposed to hand it in, we were told that we had to present it, which sent cold chills around my body. I happened to be a very shy kid and this was the beginning of the year so I didn’t even know anyone yet.
As everyone was presenting I heard the nervousness in their voice which made me feel better because I realized that I was not the only one who was worried. Then as my teacher called my name and I got up, it took me the longest to get up to the board and in that moment I instantly regretted sitting in the back. I introduced myself to the class and began reading. I read the first two sentences and was interrupted by the teacher as she told me to read louder and more slower. I thought she was exaggerating until the kids in the back were asked if they could hear me to which they said no. I began to read over and stopped after the third sentence, panicked and just started walking to my seat and sat down. My teacher being as kind as she was, didn’t question me and read my story, while sitting beside me. I was still nervous because I knew she wouldn’t do that for me another time.
That experience taught me two things, to expect the unexpected and that I needed to work on reading out loud. My teacher was also on the same page as whenever we had to read something, I was always one of the people on her list to pick. I always felt like the odd one out because of that as I would always have to read the longer paragraphs. My teacher even told my parents that I struggled reading which made everything worse. My mom thought that making me read out loud as she cooked in the kitchen was a good idea. It was never much of a challenge reading out loud to my family because I just felt as if I’m talking to them, rather than this being something totally abnormal. However, the main issue was reading in front of a crowd that I was not very comfortable being around. That was why Fourth grade English was a class I strongly disliked. My parents cut down on my time watching TV and video games. The would instead make me read 25 pages before I went to be. It actually benefited me because my reading level increased and I was able to read much faster and more fluently. I still remember making my sister read ” Lord of the Flies” to me, even though I didn’t understand a lot of words it still fascinated me. Now when I look back at that class I realized that there will be bigger challenges but you will be accustomed to dealing with them.
