Literacy Historacy

My road to literacy has been a long and tiring one. I haven’t always been such an accomplished and prestigious AP Literature student.

My parents always used to read me a story before bed. My favorites were The Bernstein Bears, The Seven Silly Eaters, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. These stories were simple, though, so I mostly stuck to looking at the pictures. I remember overlooking the words, thinking they were useless as long as I had someone to read them for me. But that couldn’t go on for forever.

So the next step was letters. In nursery school we practiced writing different letters, a new one each week  on those sheets of paper with huge lines divided across the middle with dots, to help specify which letters were meant to be shorter or taller. Then there was the “ABC’s” to tie them all together, it was my favorite song.

Then I learned words in elementary school, I had trouble with the words “and” and “stop.” I also couldn’t spell “Mississippi” for the longest time, unfortunate for me because back then that was how you proved your intelligence, you spelt “Mississippi.”

Once I learned basic words, teachers kept grinding harder and harder ones into my head. And they began cramming sentences in there, too. Sentences have a verb and a subject. Great. That’s the way it went. Before I knew it, I was reading whole books, not only The Bernstein Bears but much longer stories too. Chapter books! I began reading for fun, I think mostly because I never get carsick, so I was able to read during boring car trips rather than just stare out the window. My sister was horrified, though. She detested reading and would never do it for “fun.” Even to this day she tries to convince her teachers that she is allergic to reading.

To be honest, I don’t remember any of my English classes before 8^th grade. I may have just blacked out the majority of middle school, or we only started reading the most intelligent books in that grade. The books that we read then greatly influenced me. The Pearl forever deterred me from John Steinbeck, and “The Taming of the Shrew” proved that Shakespeare wasn’t that difficult.

And that’s the way it goes now. I still really try to go for those picture books, but I’ve absolutely grown away from the childhood bedtime stories. I mean, Heart of Darkness is definitely a long way from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.