MY FIRST WORDS

Being born in an educated family, the first thought that clicked my parents when they saw me on ultrasound was to get me a degree. So the struggle began there and then. Before I came to the world, it was decided which school and university I’ll go to and eventually it happened the same as they thought. Many of us who are born in Asian families can relate to it somewhat directly or indirectly. My grandfather was a teacher so I believe it started back then and this trend made a way down in generations to come.

Now coming back to my first words, I started school when I was 3 years old. But even before that we had a bookish environment around us. I was familiar with books and alphabets to some extend. I knew how to hold a pencil. So starting school was exploring a new horizon of learning for me. I still have a blur image of the worksheet I was provided at the admission test. I was supposed to color the objects on the paper and I knew that sun goes yellow and the leaves go green. Most probably I had observed those colors and objects around me. I still remember this and observed the same behavior in my kids. Most of our learning take place while we observe the things around us and this is very first learning starts.

For me learning to read and write was never just copying the worksheets or staring at blackboard, it was actually reading, listening, writing or most probably just exploring my hand gestures while learning to hold a pencil. I used to read whatever I found, it could be a random piece of newspaper or a billboard. Mostly in our household, a lot of emphasis was laid on learning English. So my parents were really focused on polishing our written and spoken English skills. I remember my mom discussing with my teacher on tips to polish my English and all she advised was to just make me read and make us speak in English. It did improved our spoken and written skills.

We had a library session every other day in school and that was my favorite part of the day. We used to listen while our teacher read us a book or we were made watch an english movie once a week. I believe listening at that age also help us learn a language, at least it did for me. I still remember the way our teacher read us the book accompanied by her hand gestures and body language always left an impact on my mind. I would later on pick up pieces of those stories I listened in the library and put them in my writings. From the very start in our school we were supposed to write independently and then correct any mistake we make on our own. All I remember in my early grades was writing and reading.

While writing this assignment an incident made me smile, I was in 2nd grade and we were writing something. I used the word ‘meadow’ instead field while writing a passage. My teacher was so overwhelmed that she rushed to the library teacher and showed my work. She appreciated that single word so much and told me to never stop reading because it is somewhere is those readings or listening where we start learning our first words.