Reshma Balkaran Eng 11000-B

Reshma Balkaran

Literacy Narrative

Eng 11000- B

            I remember it clearly “bam!” The sound of the ruler hitting the dinner table and her voice echoing “No! twy agwen” as a cheeky smile covered her face.  Let me take you back on my journey, the journey of how I developed a love for reading and the driving force behind me wanting to read and be able to pronunciate words accurately.  As a child, while other children played with dolls and toys, my sister and I chose to play school teacher and student.  We used our stuffed animals and dolls as our students.  One day, my grandma was helping me with my reading homework for school but I absolutely refused to do my homework.  Why? You might ask, well the way I saw it was I could sit there and do boring old homework or go two rooms down the hall and play teacher with my sister who was patiently waiting for me.  She sat there and waited for me to begin our “school day.”  Grandma on the other hand was demanding that I not move “little girl, if you take your behind off that chair, you will be spending some quality time in the naughty corner.”  Knowing that grandma meant business, I stayed put but that did not mean that I did not fidget, whine, complain or get distracted by anything and everything.  At this point, my little sister was all out of patience and she came marching into the room, wanting to know what was taking so long, grandma explained that I was not allowed to move until I did my reading homework.  My sister lit up like a Christmas tree, that little head of hers had a wonderful idea; she now had a student, a real student!  Unfortunately for me, I was this student and I was terrified, let’s be honest, who wants to be the subject of a four year old on a power trip?  Plus, I have seen the way she treated her prior “students” and it was not pretty. 

            Everyday after school as I sat to do my homework, that little brat would walk into the room, holding her red pen, ruler and a notebook, while sporting the biggest grin on her face.  As I did my homework, she would walk around and patiently wait for me to ask grandma to go over my math problems with me or to help me with my reading.  If grandma mentioned that I made a mistake or mispronounced a word, she would walk up to the table and smack the ruler against it, walk back to her “desk” and scribble in her notebook with her red pen, followed by her teasing “if you don’t get it wight, I get your twoys and candy.”  As a six year old toys and candy was everything!  That was a threat that I took very seriously, I did not realize that she had no power over my toys and candy but I knew she was capable of hiding my toys while I was at school.  From that day on, after school I raced to the dinner table to do my homework and was eager to be correct, in order to do that I had to focus extra hard, during my free time, instead of watching television with my cousins I chose to read my older cousin’s Nancy Drew and Goosebumps series books.  While reading if I came across a word that I did not know how to pronounce instead of making up my own word or skipping it over, I made it my business to stop, slowly break the word apart, sound it out and repeat it until I got it right, if I did not know how to say it, I would run to my grandpa and ask him for help.  At the end of every page my sister and I would put on our own “reading bee” where I would stand against the wall and my grandma, grandpa and sister would be my audience and I would read to them.  After reading to them and receiving the whole fanfare my sister would always give me a star sticker, one of her m&m’s that she saved, followed by a big hug, grandma and grandpa at the end of every chapter would take us out for a special secret ice cream day.  That was all the motivation I needed to keep reading and being able to accurately pronounce words as well as spell them out by slowly pronouncing it.  To this day I share a love for reading and being able to help as well as encourage children to read as well as with their spelling and math because I always remember how great I felt when I had someone encourage and help me when I needed that extra push.