Memories About Reading

Like some of the other students I do not remember learning to read at home, but I do remember my experience at school. Unfortunately, my reading and literacy memories in school are not very happy ones. When I was in first grade the teacher broke us up into to a high or low reading group, each with different level books. I was in the more advanced groups. When I was in second grade my father died. I guess i seemed a little distracted when I was in school so they decide to test me for learning disabilities. ( I think there is a big difference between a 8 year old dealing with the death of a parent and having a learning disability.) I remember getting pulled out of classes left and right to be tested.There was matching, i had to put things together, read passages and write about them, and many more things. Being that young I did not understand what was really going on, but i remember liking the attention, so i did not do as good as a could on them. Again, being that young how could I have known. After that, I feel like it was all down hill for me. They classified me with learning disabilities. Every year I would get taking out of the main stream classes and was sent to smaller classrooms to learn reading and writing. It did not make much sense though because they would not take me out of the main class when they were doing English, I would be there for that. They took me out when they were doing other subjects like math or science. So not only was I going to a smaller class with a bunch of kids that did not want to learn, I was missing other subjects. And on top of that I was always being told that i learned differently... and what not. When you are told that from the age of 8, you are going to start believing it. Because of this i do not feel i got a very good education in reading or writing. I beleive I was given a learning disability, rather than me having one. I never wanted to read out loud in class because I was too slow and could not pronounce a lot of the words and I would never ask questions when i did not understand things either. I did not want the other kids to laugh at me or get mad I was taking too long. When you are a kid that stinks... ( but i got over that, and now a days I could care less if someone in class is annoyed with me because of that lol) I could go on an on about this. Sorry that this was not the most happiest reading story. However, on a brighter note, once I got to high school I was still in these classes. My sophomore year I was told I could not get into a very good college if I was in these classes still. So, I asked to be taken out. They would not take me out so I got straight A's and made them take me out. Now, as an adult I see how much I did not learn and try to strengthen my skills. The past few years I feel like I have come a long way with my reading, comprehension, and writing abilities. I still have a long way to go, but I will never stop improving. Also, I feel this only makes me more sensitive to my students and their needs.