Personal Reflection Paper

Robin Smith
Personal Reflection Paper
06/09/2014
Gabriel Flores
Reading and Writing Concepts

I am the 3rd youngest in my family out of seven children. Reading and writing did not come easy for me growing up. Learning how to read was a challenge for me until I went into the 4th grade. My mother had 5 kids and my father had 5 kids with my mother and 2 children with another woman. They spent most of their time working and taking care of the household. “Many parents encourage young children to draw pictures for their grandparents and absent family members and include these with birthday cards. Children also learn to compose messages on computers as they watch their parents work at home” (Ogle, D., & Beers, J.W., 2009). I still struggle with my writing to this day. The University of Phoenix has helped me to develop my skills as a writer. My second class at the University of Phoenix was an Effective Academic writing course. This course helped me to learn how to write an essay. “One area of current research on written language has focused attention on the processes by which young children learn to differentiate how a particular language is represented in written form”( Ogle, D., & Beers, J.W., 2009).
I being going to preschool as soon as my mother could sign me up. “Studies of early writing and reading development show how important the role of preschool literacy experiences in the home are for subsequent learning” (Ogle, D., & Beers, J.W., 2009). I have very little memories of preschool, but I do remember bits and pieces. When I begin going to kindergarten, I remember my teacher having a big rug with was for story time. She would have story time every day. I always enjoyed story time. One of my favorite books was The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I looked forward to story time because I loved the adventure in the books. Story time motivated me to start to learn how to read. I loved to get lost in the pages of books.
While attending kindergarten, I begin to learn how to write. My teacher would write letters on the chalk board. “Even before children know the individual letters, their scribble writing shows their awareness of the physical features of writing. Harste, Woodward, and Burke (1984) described examples of preschoolers’ scribbling to make this point: the Chinese child made marks like the characters in Chinese calligraphy; an Arab child’s scribbling resembled Arabic flowing script; and an English-speaking child’s scribbling showed his awareness of English orthography—the way words are represented in written language” (Ogle, D., & Beers, J.W., 2009). I can remember she gave me a book that had the ABC's on every page, and she had me to write out the Alphabet. After learning to write the alphabet, she showed me how also to write the words in cursive. After learning how to pronounce and recognize the letters of the alphabet I begin to put them together forming words.

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