Category: Uncategorized (Page 4 of 18)

Hi, my name is Nahida Akter. I woke up at 5:30 in the morning. Then I go to pray, read some of our religious books, then I finish my breakfast with egg bread. I go to help my mother.I have a class on Monday and wednesday. If I have class, I get ready for my class. My father brought me to college. I finished college and came back to my house. I got on the train from college. After coming home, I take a bath and pray again, to take my younger sister away from her school. I finished my lunch. Take a break for yourself and pray again then I do some assignments, pray again then start reading books. I have an online class in thursday. I do some math, and finish other classes assignments. I don’t eat at night, I finish my prayers then I go to bed and go to bed at 11 o’clock at night. 

When I was around 1 or 2, I didn’t speak a lot, or tried to learn as I would just make a random noise and point to it if I wanted something. Then, one day, my mom and dad got a teacher or professional for this. This teacher would teach me that if I wanted something, to say it as she would tell me what it is, I just had to repeat. After a few months later, I couldn’t stop talking as even I mispronounced a few words, but I kept trying and learning from my mistakes. It was 50/50, in terms of language as I would speak mainly Spanish as I would also speak in English. I learned a lot of Spanish with my family and I’m happy to have it as my second language. When I started school, I went back to how I was as a baby, quiet, didn’t like attention or to speak. This is how I would be like all through my elementary school as I had friends, only a few best friends.

Through elementary school, my English teacher helped with most of the learning and reading, but surprisingly my parents had an effect on my readings and learning as my mom would teach me to write neat and other things like punctuation and grammar as she had gone through middle and high school, even though that was her worse class. My dad would just push me to learn and to write in a book a word and repeat as he barely knows English. I would also take ESL classes, even though I spoke good English but that would help me more. Then by middle school, I was not only improving my English, but also my Spanish as I would see a lot of classmates that only knew Spanish, and I didn’t want to leave behind my 2nd language, and with help from my family and a trip to El Salvador would greatly improve my Spanish and my English was already good from friends, class and using it in New York most of the time. Some struggles that I went through is that I become mute sometimes and I get stuck with some words in both languages but with help from translation, spelling and pronunciation, I am not afraid to fail, while I have gained confidence to talk more. I would learn a lot of English with pronouncing certain countries and would double check if I am not saying something correct.

Below I have decided to share my intro to my ” literacy narrative”.  I want to share the idea that no matter how great someone is at something they will ultimately need help. I’m not the type of person to ask for much help and I’ll always try to come to a solution myself before reaching out but while writing this essay I realized how much help I received and that I’m grateful for in my literacy journey. I made this a reoccurring theme throughout my essay to highlight the importance of help and guidance for others.

“All the greats didn’t become who they are overnight. All the greats made sacrifices and went through triumphs along with failure to become who they are. While being great on their own everyone needs help along the way with something. Maybe that something will be the idea, or the work put in, but everyone will need help along the way. Help is a part of the journey and may be the best way to become the successful person anyone wishes to be. The journey of reading and writing for anyone starts at a young age and continues along with the growth of the person.”