My literacy journey

 

    My name is Abigail Diaz; I am 20 years old and will be turning 21 next month. I am currently finishing off my third year at NJCU and will soon be entering my senior year. I am majoring in Global business and hope to soon be minoring in accounting. If I am being honest, my academic advisor chose this class for me because I needed a tier-three online course. Although this class would not have been my first choice, it has been quite interesting so far. I believe that I will enjoy this class and learn many new things throughout this course. A few of my interests are playing sports, singing, playing board games/ video games, and drawing/painting. I have lived in Jersey City my whole life, and my ethnicity is Puertorican and Honduran. Both sides of my family have always encouraged me to push forward and strive to achieve all my goals in my academics and life.   

    The earliest experience of literacy for me that I can remember is when I started school, in pre-k. My elementary school is a private school located in Jersey City. They begin to teach us how to read at a young age and strongly push for all students to become well-literate. Once I began to learn how to read, I quickly gained an interest in books and always strived to better my speech/reading abilities. Other than my teachers, the person who helped me to become more literate was my mom. She would take my siblings and me to the library every week and would encourage each of us to read aloud to others even if we would sometimes make mistakes. Although my mom was the one who helped the most, my dad was the person that inspired me the most. My father would always tell me that I would need reading for the rest of my life. He would emphasize its importance and inform me of all the hardships he faced in life/jobs since he had a hard time reading at times. Personally, I was and still am the thing that discouraged me the most. There were times I would find it difficult to read and found it hard to stay interested in certain stories. 

    Looking back to when I first started learning how to read; I would say that the moment I truly began to feel literate was when people would hear me reading to my mom, and they would tell her how well I read at such a young age. Their words made me feel as if I was a genius, and they even caused me to gain more confidence in my ability to read. As a child, I would love to read books and listen to audiobooks as I would follow along with the book in my hands. Another activity that I enjoyed was when my family and I would go on long trips; my dad would play this game to see who could read the most road signs and street signs correctly. The thing that would frustrate me the most was when I would continuously make the same mistake and mispronounce the same word multiple times. 

    Today I feel confident in my reading, but I have difficulty at comprehending at times. Literacy, in my opinion, is probably the most important part of life and learning. Reading is a requirement of life; if a person is illiterate, how will they be able to read a contract for a job, follow directions on a test, understand road signs, or even send a text message. Being literate helps us to understand words and grow in our language and speech. People need to know how to read even once they are out of school. In my life now, I continue to use literacy every day. In each of my jobs, I am required to read, write, and hold conversations with others. For school, I have to take tests, follow directions, do assignments and papers, and read for class. If it were not for the push of my teachers and my ability to read, I would not be able to do any of the things I mentioned. The thing that continues to inspire me to be literate is my future, graduating, and wanting to be successful in this life.