Author: jennifer rodriguez (Page 1 of 2)

I don’t exactly remember how i learned how to write but i do recall how i learned how to read. During elementary school, i had to do get my mother to sign my reading log sheet but she would never sign them unless i read in front of her for at least one hour, even though the reading log said i only had to read for 15-20 minutes a day. My mother never let me read baby books no matter how old i was, she loved when i read books that had chapters and were more than 10 pages long. I would sit down and read to her while she cooked and every word i mispronounced she would correct me. The only word i remember that i used to pronounce wrong was Virginia. I would say virgina not knowing what that was which makes me think how much patience my mom had while helping me learn. Anyways, other than my mom helping me learn how to read, my elementary school also guided me on this too. I remember every month my teacher would pull us outside the classroom one by one, with a desk and chair waiting for us so that we could get tested. I would always be scared to take these for the simple fact that it was a one on one thing. I’m a very shy person and also an over thinker which made me sort of push myself to pass these or else i would feel super embarrassed and think the teacher thinks i’m not smart enough. Besides that, my teacher would obviously help me prepare for this by giving me books were higher than the level i was currently on. This would help me learn new vocabulary that I wasn’t used to and it also helped me speak properly.  Something that also helped me read was language spoken at home. I knew how to read both Spanish and English. My mother and my elementary school helped me improve my reading in English but my Grandma assisted me on the Spanish part. The first language i spoke was English and my grandma always spoke to me in Spanish and made me watch the news with her which was also in Spanish. I started to pick up the language as time went by. Later on, she would tell me to read labels and pronounce all the different types of letters. I feel like this really helped me not only speak the language but also read it and be able to communicate with others and even translate for them if they needed me to.  This really helped me when i entered middle school and had to take a Spanish class for the first time. I already knew the language but you never stop learning so i still had more to acknowledge about the language. I forgot to mention, my Spanish middle school teacher helped me advance my vocabulary and writing skills. There are many rules to the way certain words are pronounced and i couldn’t have done it without the help of my grandma, mother, elementary school teachers and my Spanish teacher in middle school.