My purpose for writing a literacy autobiography is to reflect on when I learned how to read. I learn how to read when I was four-years-old; I believe that reading serves a purpose of providing a gateway to an imaginary world in one’s childhood. Reading, for as long as I could remember has ultimately always been a challenge for me. Writing for some reason is easier than reading, which is stressful because reading and writing goes hand and hand. Learning how to read for me was difficult, especially if the book did not interest me. As a result, I often got frustrated and refused to read at school and home. I chose to align this artifact, with standard eight of the New Jersey Professional Standards for Teaching—Instructional Strategies. …show more content…
During my high school career, I faced many reading obstacles; it was a challenge to be literate because of the lack of reading I did during my childhood. I struggled with reading because I felt like my parents gave up on caring about my education so along with them I stopped trying. Until this day, I regret making that decision and should have rather reached out to one of my older siblings, but I was stubborn and now I find it difficult to apply concepts to other ideas, finding important details, and comprehend the texts that I …show more content…
Swartz would assign two new vocabulary words on the board each class and we would have to define the words and write a sentence for each word. My vocabulary began to expand and helped me understand some of the words in the higher level books, especially the course textbooks. Each marking period, Mrs. Swartz challenged me with my reading, she would allow me to pick out three books of my interest to read, and answer questions aligned with the books. That for me was enjoyable because it was like a treasure hunt—I would dissect the text for meaning, instead of writing a summary. Mrs. Swartz was a very stern and passionate English teacher. When it was time to take the HSPA, during my junior year of high school, I began to panic because yet again, this test was going to tell me what I struggled with in each section. I had to retake the reading section of the HSPA three times; however, I did not give up, mainly because Mrs. Swartz was there to help me. When I took the exam, for a third time, I finally passed. I will forever before thankful for having Mrs. Swartz as an English teacher. Mrs. Swartz never gave up on me. My parents were very proud of me for passing the