Almost everyone grows up taking classes especially English, it is one of the core classes that is looked at heavily when being accepted into a college or university. From the beginning I have not enjoyed reading and writing. Growing up in a world where technology has progressed so much sense my infant years watching television, playing games, or even just using my cellphone that wasn’t as impressive as the ones we have today. Reading and writing was always something forced upon me by the schools or by my parents, I am one of those people who would go outside and be active or watch a football game than sit around reading a book all day. Even saying that I understand the importance of reading and writing and how it helps you understand and learn new things throughout your life.
My childhood reading was never forced upon me, I was just expected to do the what the schools gave me and never did any extra reading on my own time. I always dreaded reading because it was not as interactive as other things in the world. Me being more of a hands on learner I would enjoy doing experiments and labs rather than reading out of a text book because it was easier for me to understand and make more sense of a topic. One thing that made me hate reading was the endless amount of summer reading we would get assigned each year like the novel “The Glass Castle” and “The Boy and the Striped Pajamas”. It would come with what seemed liked a million questions sometimes, along with the countless number of hours reading it took to just to answer the question booklet. One of the main problems for me is i am one of the biggest procrastinators that there is in the world. Many times you will see me doing my homework minutes before class starts or even doing it when the teacher starts coming around to check it for a grade. This was not always the best thing to do but to say the least I got my work done and the information was fresh in my head for the class.
The biggest impact at a young age on my reading was when my 5th grade teacher gave us the first big assignment of the year and she introduced a new book series to the class: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. This book was the first one that I have ever truly enjoyed from beginning to end. The book taught me about the Greek gods and the roles they played in the world too. It was part teaching and part a great story that followed the life of a young demigod that went through the struggle of finding out he was not a normal kid and had responsibilities to protect the world from mythological creatures that you hear about in the folklores, like a minotaur, cyclops and the feared Hades. I also realized I didn’t dread the fact that I had to read a certain number of chapters for homework each night, and I found myself reading more than was expected to. Believed I was so interested in it because of what the book is about and how it brought me into a whole different world than the one we live in today. The book took you on adventures and really gave amazing imagery of what where the characters went. The author Rick Riordan told the reader what the camp looked liked and what it had to offer. He described all the houses and most of the people who lived inside them. The way he described things truly made the books better in every aspect possible.
After the first book was finished, I found myself wanting to know more and had my mom pick up the second, then the third and fourth and so on. My mom was extremely pleased with this sudden shock that her son enjoyed to read. She was so happy, having been a librarian at one point in her life. She was in love with books and was always pushing me to read them. After reading The Lightning Thief was the moment when I realized about one chapter in that this book got me hooked and from that point on I realized that it is not awful activity to do when you find the right book for yourself.
This Teacher impacted my reading life, it made me understand that if you can make reading an enjoyable time if look at it as a something to do instead of something you have to do because of schooling. It is something we as people must do in order to learn and to succeed. I am extremely thankful that I figured out at a young age rather than later on in life when it would effect me in a huge way like college because the readings give you a way better understanding of the subjects. Most of the time in college, the readings are what prepare you for next class rather than learning about something each class and the homework being review of what happened in class that day. Many teachers gave me positive and negative opinions on writing, but throughout it all I learned that it is important to read and find books that interest me because this is how you learn new things and understand subjects better.
