Elementary Literacy

My literacy was the same timeline as basically any other kid you would ask. It began in kindergarten with the daily reading out loud from the teacher. As we became more experienced and involved it would be alphabet days where we would practice a new letter and associate it with an animal. Each and every day we would explore a new letter and new sounds. As we progressed through school and the years we would take on more and more complex noises and letter combinations. We went from just learning the word boy to the word stomach throughout my elementary school career. During these years literacy didn’t particularly interest me all that much. I preferred my time to be spent outside digging in the mud or playing on the playground. I was a young boy just reaping the world for the fun times to be had. I didn’t care about word or sentence structures. I cared more about when our next soccer game was or if there was enough wood to finish our tree house. The closest to free-time reading I liked was comic books. I found a haven in comic books and found a lifetime love of them. Now I disguise the childish name of comic books with graphic novels. Throughout my elementary school times I would still read and be read book such as Dr. Suess and Charlottes’ Web but I still loved my Superman and The Flash. Although this wasn’t quite the same literacy that most people would come to think of I felt it important none the less in hind-sight. Looking back I believe that without comic books I may have completely lost interest in pursuing reading. Literacy as a child is very important. It is the time to either get into it or it could be lost on them forever. It’s the time where a child’s mind is open and ready to absorb information and it’s the perfect time to get a child into reading. It’s so exciting to a child for them to know that you could travel to faraway lands and be a space cowboy without leaving the comfort your home. It was amazing to be able to learn something so important and not really know the importance of this until looking back in hindsight years and years later. It’s a tool that you can use through your whole life and can actually improve throughout life. Without this tool a person is up the river without a paddle. Getting a child to read anyway possible is crucial to the remainder of their life. As it was for me comic books were my lifeline. They kept me interested and basically kept me on track for a successful life. I found an interest in something that I needed my interest in. In hindsight I am very grateful for my own quirkiness in learning. Always going off the beaten path to find my own interest.