Month: September 2019

I dont necessarily remember this moment, but I remember my mother telling me that I was ahead of  all the other kids in my year because most of the kids, since they were latin and some of them were the only child so they grew up only talking, reading, and writing in Spanish, had to take a bilingual class. Me, on the other hand, didn’t have to take a bilingual class since I already knew how to talk, read, and write in Spanish. So since english wasn’t a problem for me, I got to learn advanced materials than all the other kids. I even got to skip a grade. While everyone else had to take an extra class because their english wasn’t the best and their skills in reading and writing also weren’t the best. I obviously still had a teacher who spoke both english and Spanish because of the neighborhood I grew up in that was made up of hispanics and latinos. But because my teachers were starting to be only english speakers, my Spanish was fading away. I was starting to forget how to write, read, and say certain words in Spanish. English was starting to take over my Spanish. Which was beginning to scare me because I didn’t want to forget my first language, the language I use to be able to communicate with my family. So I began, not only talking to my sister in english, but in Spanish too. I’d also start writing and reading a lot more in Spanish than I’d use to. So not only was I got in reading, writing, and talking in Spanish but also in english.

A personal experience that I had with reading and writing would have to be regarding my little 9 year old sister. In the growing process of my sister is has been fairly hard for her to comprehend certain aspects of school and that’s where I came in, My sister would have trouble reading and understanding the topics in school and also her homework so I would sit with her and go through it one by one making sure she could fully understand what I was saying and shortly after she was doing it on her own. I soon found out that it was the way I was teaching her and she found it more interesting and comfortable because after all I am her brother. After a few weeks of us going over how to pronounce certain words and  also how to complete sentences, she had it down and was finishing everything on her own. I had also made an appearance in her school to have a talk with one of her teachers to find out that my sister was doing perfectly fine but the teacher was the one doing her job as if it didn’t matter to her. She(the teacher) had been giving out worksheets and expecting the students to complete it at home without any knowledge of what they were expected to complete. The teacher was eventually fired and replaced and I would make sure that my sister understood by asking her questions based on what she as reading, the problem never occurred again.

When I was fairly young, around 2-3 years old my parents thought I was mute and couldn’t comprehend anything that was being said to me because I barely spoke. Due to this my parents and my teachers decided to put me in a english as a second language class while I was in school, and they also decided to get me a tutor at home. However I understood everything that was being said to me and I knew how to talk, I’ve rarely ever spoke back to my parents and teachers for the simple fact that I was just shy. Eventually they realized I never needed an ESL class because Ive always found it easy and any work that was given to me I would understand it with complete comprehension and never needed anything explained to me. My tutor also realized this. My parents asked me why I rarely spoke to them and I simply told them it was because I was shy and I really did not like to speak. I was always a quiet kid and till this day I still am. I talk to my parents and everyone around me like any normal person would but sometimes I can be really quiet when Im in a bad mood or when Im around people I don’t really know and whom Im not comfortable around. I never had a problem with reading or writing but being forced into doing work that I understood and didn’t need any  clarification made me not enjoy reading or writing. Till this day I don’t really enjoy  reading as I tend to lose focus easily and get uninterested and I procrastinate on every single writing or reading assignment .

I was in 3rd grade when I immigrated to America. Reading and writing was one of my weakest, I could speak English but reading and writing was challenging. I was placed in ESL (English as Second Language) throughout my elementary school. In those 3 years in my elementary school, I trained myself good enough to pass the ESL exam. Starting 6th grade I was placed in regular English. I enjoyed writing a lot more than reading, I don’t know why but I find almost nothing interesting to read. I seem uninterested in almost every reading I was given. I only finished my reading assignments given by the teacher if I was forced to read. Every time I was given a reading, I tried to find ways to avoid reading the entire passage and jump to summaries. Sometimes I had no choice but to read. However, writing was something I could do and not realize how much I have written, I actually enjoyed it. As I grew older and eventually went to high school, I realized I have to make reading my best friend. I can’t just avoid it forever, so I started to read more. Started slow but currently if I look at the past, I read more than before. In 10th grade my creative writing teacher gave us an assignment, she said to write about one thing about yourself. It can be anything, and as easy as it sounds it was actually so hard for me to write about just one thing. It was hard for me to think about one thing out of all the other things that have occurred in past. When it comes to writing, I hate writing about myself. I find it hard to think about a specific event. However, once I get an event and start writing I would go on and on about that topic. So after my teacher gave us that assignment, it took me the entire period to decide on what to write about, then I had to finish it at home since I wasted my entire period thinking. When a teacher gives me exactly what to write about, it makes my life so much easier.

I remember when I was growing up in middle school I didn’t really have much of a taste for reading. Let alone writing, even though when I did write the ideas were great but my grammar was completely off. It was a time in my new middle school where we had to take reading tests to see what level of reading you are on. I was new to the school and the system so I didn’t have much knowledge on what I was reading and what the real purpose it was for. Unfortunately it turned out I wasn’t so great when it came to reading, and in that moment when I got back the results I didn’t think I was so bad. I kept making mistakes and I didn’t like myself for the time because how bad I was. The thoughts that came to my head was that I wouldn’t get much better in the future. In the school they would also test me on my writing skills during class and even then I was bad. I had so many grammatical errors in my sentences and I didn’t know how to make use of my punctuations like I should which ultimately didn’t even allow my sentences to make sense or seem interesting to readers. I had a lot of trouble making long sentences with no periods or commas or even having emotion in the sentence too. I was all over the place and that mainly stemmed from not reading. Ultimately, my experience reading and writing is one of the worst where I didn’t have much sense in it and I didn’t do so well in it thinking that I couldn’t get better. Until I did get better with the right motivation and right people along my side to help me get better.

My first experience of wanting to read and write on a daily basis was in 7th grade when I was introduced to the app Wattpad. The app on its surface was nothing too special, only being made for people to be able to read and write books. Of course that’s what it was back in 2012 when I had first joined. Now it’s something more with writing contests being hosted, people being recognized and publishing books and getting movie deals or getting paid by Wattpad for the writing that they put up there; it’s really expanded into something amazing. Back in 2012, I had just made an account due to a recommendation from a friend. She was already reading books on there and she had told me I should read this one book which she had lent me her phone to skim over and I was really interested. I then made an account and it quickly became an addiction for me. I just wanted to read all the time. The books that people made on there were more interesting than any hardcover book I had ever picked up. I downloaded the app on my phone and was reading to and from school, in the middle of English class on the laptops we were given, at lunch and eventually I began to write too. My first-ever story, still incomplete to this day, was supposed to be a twist on “Romeo and Juliet”  by Shakespeare and it essentially followed the plot that it was never the families that hated each other, but Romeo and Juliet did. Despite nobody actually reading my stories I wouldn’t get discouraged because it made me learn about myself as a writer. I was very descriptive when it came to writing my stories and would have pages just full of imagery. Somewhere along the line it helped me begin to do better when it came to my writing projects in class. If not for Wattpad I probably wouldn’t be at all interested in reading and writing like I am now nor would I be any good at it.

Reading and writing nowadays can be frustrating.  Ever since I was a kid, reading and writing essays wasn’t really kind of my thing. I mean , who wants to read and write nowadays? We have phones and computers for that. (Even this homework is on computer). Technology has grown so much that we don’t need pen and paper to make notes. A simple on a phone can do it all. I used to take hours during reading because I would not understand the sentences. I would read a passage and forget about it. Hence, it used to take me longer than usual to understand a passage then write a piece on it. And sometimes I still do. And during writing, I Used to spend so much time planning on what to write, then rush into writing and trying to finish because I don’t have time anymore. I never really liked writing. However, after coming to this country , I started off with hardship. I realized what life really is. What being an adult really is when I had to take care of my entire family. I had two jobs and was paying all the bills and feeding the family. It was stressful. But I never complained because they are my family.  I lived in Michigan for a year then I moved to New York to study and Pursue my dreams. But things got even worse over here. I have a lot of friends here in New York that are always there for me. Due to few personal situations I had to go through , I noticed, talking about it really didn’t help me relief my stress. So I decided to write. I wrote everything that was bothering me as if I’m talking to someone. I started Writing all my problems down as if I was sharing my deep secrets to someone. I felt kinda peace from it. I noticed that the thing I never really liked, is the thing that really helped me out through all the stress and other issues I had. Writing just helps me stay calm because I’m all alone and writing whatever I want with no one bother me- just me sharing my feelings to help me relieve from stress.

Junior year, I had the option of taking a Spanish class or French class, it was a no brainer which one I would obviously select but little did I know my Spanish was very imperfect. Growing up I honestly do not remember which language I spoke first because I was mute, I refused to learn how to speak but I knew that Spanish was never my strong suit, sure I knew how to say things but it was never anything complex. I remember taking a Spanish class in Junior year, thinking it would be easy but I struggled not with reading but mainly with writing and sometimes speaking. It felt kind of embarrassing, although I knew Spanish I would always ask my friends Jessica and Ana for help. I feel like I just don’t get enough practice and so with time I started losing my accent and begin to stumble on words or give up and say what I meant in English instead of Spanish whenever I talk to my mother. I knew that this Spanish class was gonna be helpful for me but I definitely took it for granted, I would sit in the back of the class and fool around with my friends and make jokes not realizing I should’ve paid attention to the lesson knowing it would be beneficial. My family members would text me in Spanish and yes I understand it but I never know what to write simply because I don’t know how to say a lot of things in Spanish. Even having conversations on the phone I wouldn’t say much to a family member because I don’t want them knowing my Spanish isn’t as good as theirs, I would love to communicate with them more but I get frustrated and instead have my mom or my sister translate to them.