Literacy Impact

I remember my parents were so excited when I read them my first book. I think I was three at the time. This sounds impressive; but it’s not. I memorized the book. My real first experience reading on my own was probably when I was kindergarten, but I have to back track a bit.

My mother is the oldest of seven kids in her family so I am closer in age with some of her siblings than her. Two of my aunts are only three and a half and five years older than me. They just felt like older siblings to me when I was younger since they lived across the street from me. I remember I always wanted to be like them and I was jealous that they went to school every day (crazy, huh?) and could read. This sparked the motivation for me to learn to read.

My mother and grandmother were the family members who would consistently read to me. My mother would always read bedtime stories to my sister, Honour and me. Sometimes we would be at my grandmother’s house late at night and we would listen to her read the Harry Potter series to my aunts. Honestly I didn’t understand Harry Potter books until a few years later when I saw the first movie and it recaptured my interest but it’s still a fond memory. When I was in grade school, I would read bedtime stories to my youngest sister, Willa.

Once I was in kindergarten, I was blown away at the size of the library. I remember there were tables where they would put out books that were the appropriate reading level to select to bring home. This bothered me a lot in kindergarten; I didn’t like being told what to read (and I still don’t!) I remember the first time I got hooked on a book. It was a collection of like three short stories about leprechauns, it was called Seeing is Believing. I brought it home for my mother to read to me a few times and then I returned it to the library. A few weeks later I would do the same thing with the same exact book. I think I probably checked that book out of the library at least ten times. When I was in first grade, my parents caught on to this and bought me the book so I would check other books out of the library. By the next year I could read to myself and I was obsessed with chapter books like the Junie B. Jones and the Cam Jansen series.

My grandmother was the person who encouraged me to write and express myself creatively. After raising seven children, my grandmother was determined to go back to school and establish a career besides being a farmer’s wife. She took classes at SUNY New Paltz and later at the University of Rhode Island to achieve her Ph.D. in English. Eventually she would be the head of the Writing Center at St. Andrews University in Laurenburg, North Carolina. She passed away in December but its astonishing looking back now, how much she affected my attitude towards reading and writing.

My grandmother taught me how to use all of my energy creatively. I remember for my birthdays she would always give me art supplies, journals and books. I was really into drawing as a kid; I even thought I would be an artist when I grew up (this lost its appeal when I learned the term ‘starving artist’ so I looked for a new career path). My grandmother would read me silly poems and short stories I would draw what I felt or envisioned. Just this year I learned that this is a popular notion and is called ekphrastic art. Eventually this would lead to me writing my own poems and stories. She would pay me a dollar for my pictures and poems (can you see why I didn’t learn about starving artists until much later?). I know this sounds like bribery but I enjoyed it and I ended up writing and drawing a lot.

Just last fall, when my grandmother’s cancer diagnosis got progressively worse we helped her move her belongings to my aunt’s house and came across a lot of the projects I made for her. Among several drawings and letters, I found a framed poem with a Crayola washable marker drawing underneath it. It was the first poem I had ever written. I can’t believe she kept it.

Through the years my grandmother stopped paying me to read, write and draw because I was doing it on my own and enjoying it. She would always tell me and my mother good books to read. Glancing now at my bookshelf, I have a whole shelf full of her books that I never returned because they were so enjoyable. She would always pack at least three books when she would visit my family and from nine until midnight every night just read.

I never really thought about how much these experiences over the years would impact me. I don’t think I would get good grades in school or still take art classes if my childhood was different. Its surprises me how much of an impact these little things have had on my life.