My Literacy Sponsors

By: Lexi Maddux

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Junior/Senior Year English

My final literacy sponsor is one that made me enjoy English class again. Up until my junior year, English was a class that I never really enjoyed. This was based on many of my literacy sponsors from my younger years, for example, speech therapy, being afraid to speak in class, and also the extra help I needed in reading. English was never one of the best subjects for me in school. I always found it to be frustrating for me and just something I never truly enjoyed. I always did fine and got good grades because that’s just who I am. No matter how much I dislike a class, I’ll still work hard to get a good grade in it. My junior year English class was one of my favorite classes in high school. Mainly the reason I really enjoyed it was because of the teacher. He made the class really fun and I always enjoyed going to his class. For junior year English classes, everyone has to read The Great Gatsby. I knew this was a requirement and everyone who I asked about either said they loved it or they hated it, not really anyone in between. Even my mom said she didn't particularly like the book and so going into the book I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I ended up loving the book! My teacher was great at explaining the hidden symbols and the different literary aspects of the book. For example, the weather that occurs in the book is suppose to be representative of Gatsby’s mood and color symbolism plays a major part as well. The color green symbolizes The American Dream and the color white symbolizes innocence and fairness. Overall, I had a really good experience with the book and still remains a book I really enjoy today.

Retrieved from: 

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-great-gatsby/f-scott-fitzgerald/bruce-dean/9784871878401

My senior year English class was also one of my favorite classes in high school. Again, I had an amazing teacher who was awesome at explaining different books and short stories we read and made sure we really understand what the book was trying to say. One of the big requirements all senior year classes have to do is write a research paper. Whenever he mentioned it, I got pretty apprehensive about it because papers or essays were not something I particularly enjoyed. They stressed me out and since this was gonna be a research paper, it was gonna be a lot of work. Once I picked a topic and started researching. I really started to enjoy writing my paper because I was very passionate about my topic. He also created a process for us that was very manageable and made the whole paper a lot easier. For the process, obviously we had to research our topic first, once that was done we had to develop a thesis statement and write five main points you were gonna talk about. After that, we had to create rough outlines with our thesis statement and then for each main point, had to write sub points and then evidence provided. Then we could starting writing the actual paper and we to have a couple rough drafts and have a classmate read it as well. The paper took over a month to complete and was definitely a lot of work and consumed most of my time for awhile. While the paper was a lot of work and stressed me out at times, it is a piece of writing I am very proud of.

Overall, these two teachers made me enjoy my time in English which hadn’t happened in awhile. I actually enjoyed going to English and was excited about the stories we read. These sponsors brought some enjoyment with reading and writing back in me. It helped me realize that just because some English classes were not the best doesn’t mean they’re all like that. Without those two teachers, I probably would not have enjoyed English as much as I did those years. The teachers you have for certain for classes can really affect how you perceive that class. Luckily I had two great teachers who made my classes really enjoyable.

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Social Media in Middle/High School

In my previous post I talked about how in eighth grade I began to really enjoy reading and how it was fun for me. After that year, reading never felt fun again. Let's go back to when I first started middle school in sixth grade. At this time, social media was just beginning to become a thing. Most people in my grade had a Facebook and most people were obsessed with it, like me. I remember in sixth grade coming home from school and going straight on my iPod and scrolling through Facebook. I’m pretty sure I got my first iPod in sixth grade so I was obsessed. I loved going through Facebook, downloading a bunch of games and playing those, and also listening to music. I would usually do all of this before I would even start my homework. This was where reading in my free time would be lower and lower up until my eighth grade year. I was very obsessed with all the new technology and social media and would rather go on that than read a book. All of that changed when I was in eighth grade and loved reading again but once I got to high school, the love of reading I developed went away.

High school was a big adjustment for me. I was super nervous and had no idea what to expect. I began to be very busy and did not have a lot of free time. In high school, I was a three sport athlete, was apart of student council, and also participated in band. My schedule consisted of going to school, going to practice, coming home and doing homework, and then going to bed. After all that, I never wanted to read a book, I just wanted to go on my phone. In high school, I was forced to read a lot of books I was not interested in and after all that I did not find the fun in reading more. After practice and doing all my homework, I just wanted to sit and watch YouTube or listen to music. As I got older, reading began to be homework and after reading for school I did not want to read anymore. Social media consumed most of my life in high school and still does today. Now that I’m in college, reading in my free time is definitely something I don’t wanna do. Most of college is about reading and after reading what I need to for school, I just wanna relax and go on phone. This is a big deal in my generation and generations younger than me, technology and social media is taking over our lives and causing us to read less and less. 

Retrieved from: 

https://yourdestinyfulfilled.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/tunnel-vision-a-millennials-guide-to-staying-focused/social-media-icons/

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Eighth Grade English

This year was a very big development of my literacy. The fourth literacy sponsor I have is my eighth grade English class. For this class, my teacher was my middle school track coach and I was excited to have him as my teacher. I remember on the first day of school he explained what the plan was for the year and what some expectations he had. The one that caught my attention was when he said that reading was gonna be a huge part of the curriculum. When he first mentioned this, I wasn’t too excited because over my middle school years, I began to read less and less. At this point, I wasn’t sure about having to read a lot. Each month, we had to read a book from a certain genre and then after that we were allowed to read whatever books we wanted. My teacher had his own library in the back of his classroom and he had a very large selection of books for us to choose from. He always was very good at suggesting books that you might be interested in and every time I read a book he suggested, I loved it. Some of my favorites from that year were the Divergent Series, The Fault in Our Stars, and The Maze Runner series.

Retrieved from: Meryl Kaleida, https://ignatiusnovels.com/blog/2015/04/i-am-divergent/

I began to really love to read again. It never felt like a chore or forced or that it was homework for me. Everyday in class we would read for at least 15 minutes and sometimes it would be what we did for the majority of the hour. I was so passionate and excited about reading. I had grown over the years to not enjoy English classes because of my pervious post and literacy sponsor. I use to never be excited about going to English but that year I was always excited to go. 

In eighth grade, social media was beginning to advance, which will be something I will talk about in a future post. Prior to my eighth grade year, I would normally choose to go on some sort of social media or technology over reading. Once I got to this English class, I usually choose to read instead of go on social media. I read a lot of books that year and it really made me love reading again. After school or after practice I would do my homework and then read until I went to bed. I was very passionate about reading that year and I felt accomplished because of all the books I read. This literacy sponsor restored my love and appreciation for reading back in me. I realized how much I love reading and how exciting it is to be really into a story.

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My Parents

To help with the previous two literacy sponsors I’ve talked about were my parents. They were huge impacts on my literacy and also were major reasons my reading level eventually got to the level it needed to be at. An example of what they did was any vocabulary lists I got, they would make me flashcards because we learned that flashcards was the best way I learned. It was extra work for my parents but it ended up benefiting me greatly. They would either make them with note cards or a lot of the time they would buy actual flashcards. This gave me more repetition and another form to help me study that worked better than just writing them multiple times on a piece of paper. Another thing my parents made me do was they encouraged me to read at least 15 minutes a day. Most of the time I didn’t really wanna do this because I wanted to play with my toys or watch tv. I am glad they encouraged me though because it did ultimately help my reading level go up.

Eventually I really began to enjoy the time I was suppose to read and would start to even read longer than 15 minutes. I began to enjoy reading again because my reading level was getting to where it was supposed to be and I could start to read some harder books and become a better reader because of it. My parents would also ask me about what I read to make sure I understood what I was reading. They were making sure that I wasn’t just reading the pages and not understanding what was being said in the book. If my summary wasn’t very good, they would ask me questions about it and if I couldn’t really answer them, my parents would recommend re-reading what I had read.

This literacy sponsor helped me in many ways. Since my parents encouraged me to read every night, it became part of my routine and it didn’t feel like homework or like it was forced after awhile. It also helped me to really think about what I was reading because my parents would ask about what I had read. It really made me learn to stop every once and awhile and think about what I had just read. My parents were big influences on me and really were a major part in the development of my literacy. Without the extra help they provided me, my reading level would probably not have gotten to where it should've been. I’m very thankful for their help and for them encouraging me to read.

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Speech Therapy/Stuttering

Going along with my previous literacy sponsor and the struggles with reading was also my struggle with speaking. My third literacy sponsor is speech therapy. Going along with my previous post, I mentioned how I was a very quiet child and was not particularly good at speaking. One reason for this was I had a very bad stuttering problem. Reading out loud as a kid was one of the scariest things for me. Being young and having a stuttering problem led to a lot of other kids making fun of me or they would laugh at me. I was always afraid of pronouncing a word wrong and then being made fun of because of it. This lead me to not talk at all in class which is why I needed the extra help in reading. I went to speech therapy where I worked on pronunciation and also reading slower and really thinking about the words I was saying. This therapy really helped increase my reading ability and also helped lessen my stuttering issue. Although this did help decrease my stuttering, I still do it today and also get made fun of because of it still. When people make fun of me for stuttering, it doesn’t usually bother me because now I can laugh about it too. Sometimes it gets so bad I have to completely stop what I’m saying and restart my sentence. It actually is quite funny at times and it doesn’t really bother me today. When I was younger, kids were mean about it. It was bad enough that I was already self conscious about it, I didn’t need other kids making it worse.

Retrieved from:

http://www.downloadclipart.net/browse/9299/tango-face-sad-clipart

You might be asking how this is considered a literacy sponsor for me, and it is because it has caused a lasting effect on me. Since I was so self conscious as a young child and was always afraid to talk in class, that carried on with me for the rest of my life. I was always the really shy kid in class who never really participate, especially when it came to English class. I was always afraid to answer a question or participate in a discussion because I didn’t wanna stutter or mess up when I spoke and have people laugh at me. Doing presentations in front of a class was and is one of my biggest fears. As I’ve gotten older it has gotten easier talking in class but standing up in front of the class is something that still terrifies me. This literacy sponsor while it did help increase my literacy and made me a better reader, also left some negative memories with me that I still struggle with today.

Retrieved from: csp_mybaitshop,  https://www.fotosearch.com/CSP992/k12598493/

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Extra Help in Reading

In elementary school, around kindergarten, I started to struggle with reading. I wasn’t at the reading level I should be at and I wasn’t particularly good at reading out loud either. So this is where my second literacy sponsor comes in: summer school. From about kindergarten to third grade I went to summer school to help get my reading level up. Even though I did get books every month and enjoyed reading, the reading level I should be at wasn’t there. I remember not particularly enjoying going to summer school because I never understood why I had to go but other kids in my grade didn’t. Luckily they helped make it fun and more enjoyable. Summer school didn’t last all day, it was just for half the day in the morning. While I was there, they mainly helped me with sight words, such as “like” and, “is”, “for”, “in”, and “out”, which are all the words needed to form sentences. I was a very quiet child and that caused a lot of the issues. I never talked so I never worked on forming sentences out loud. My teachers were worried I wasn’t absorbing enough of what they were teaching so summer school and getting extra reading help was suggested. Luckily, this really helped and eventually in third grade, my teacher said I didn’t need anymore summer school or any extra learning programs. I remember vividly being so excited that I didn’t have to go anymore. I was so happy that I didn’t have to go to school in the summer and didn’t have to go to anymore extra classes.

This literacy sponsor had quite a big impact on me. This was where reading was a big struggle for me and caused me to be discouraged at times. It was frustrating for me because I didn’t really understand why I had to go to summer school and needed to work more with teachers on my reading skills. During class, it seemed like I was doing fine and did not need the extra help. I disliked having to come home and work more on reading and my speaking skills than other kids had to. It was a difficult time for me but ultimately it helped me become a better reader and helped get my level up where it should have been. In my next post I’ll elaborate more on another reason I needed extra help with reading and speaking.

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Imagination Library

Growing up, reading was something I really enjoyed, especially at a young age. It was always enjoyable and something I loved doing. A reason for this was because of my first literacy sponsor. What is a literacy sponsor? According to Deborah Brandt, a literacy sponsor is someone who helped someone else become literate. People do not become literate on their own, literacy is sponsored by people or institutions and they help make it possible for someone to be literate and shape how they acquired that literacy. These literacy sponsors can leave positive impacts on us but also leave negative impacts. Sometimes literacy sponsors can suppress our literacy and cause us to not enjoy reading and writing. A person could have been forced to read frequently at a young age and as they grew up, developed a disliking of reading. Each person has different literacy sponsors that are unique to them and one of mine is this organization called Imagination Library.

Image from https://imaginationlibrary.com/

For those of you who do not know, Imagination Library is a book gifting program created by Dolly Parton and it mails free and high-quality books based on what age you are. They are given to children from birth until they reach kindergarten. The books are sent out to any family who starts the program regardless of income. This was something that was a big part of my childhood. I remember vividly getting them in the mail and wanting to read them right away and being so excited about it. Since the books came every month, it was something I looked forward to. Whenever my mom would check the mail, I would ask if my book had arrived. It is one of the first memories that I have where I was genuinely excited about reading. I also have a sister who is four years younger than me and she also was part of the program. We both would receive books and a lot of the time I would read them to her. Even though she was basically a baby and couldn’t read and obviously didn’t understand what I was saying, I loved to read to her. Since my sister and I both got books from this library we accumulated a large amount of books. The pictures provided below show a bunch of my favorites from my childhood. Some of my favorites were The Snowy Day, Five Little Monkeys Jumping On The Bed, Mrs. Wishy-Washy, Max and Ruby books, Spot Goes To The Farm, and Disney Three Minute Bedtime Stories. When I look at these books, I get very nostalgic about them and remember how much I loved reading these books. I remember reading them all time and having my mom read them to me before bed.

The importance of this sponsor was it really instilled in me a love and excitement for reading. Without this sponsor, I most likely would not have enjoyed reading as much as I did as a child. Since these books came every month, I had something to look forward too and caused me to be really passionate about reading at a young age. My parents thought it was important for my sister and I to both read a lot as kids, especially since I struggled with reading and I needed help in getting my reading level up to what age I was. In my next post, I’ll explain why these books played an important role in helping increase my reading level.

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Central Idea

As a child growing up, I had many positive experiences that caused me to really enjoy reading and also some negative experiences that caused me to be tentative when it came to reading, especially when reading in front of people. Ultimately these literacy experiences shaped me into who I am today. As social media became a bigger thing in my late middle school years and into high school, my enjoyment with reading declined because it always felt forced and reading began to feel more like homework.