Literacy Development

Brannen Wood
Professor Voght
My literacy development began around the time I was in pre-k, most likely when I was 5
or 6. Having said that, this was not my first exposure to books. My mother read to me nearly
every night when I was very young and even read when I was unborn. When I began reading on
my own, my parents often times gave me books to read and look at, these were, most times,
nothing more that picture books. I was often times unwilling to read them because it frustrated
me as I could not read and was unable to understand what was going on. Initially my parents had
to persuade me to read through the use of rewards as sort of an incentive. When I went to
Kindergarten, I began learning to write from my teacher Ms. Fungeroli. She greatly improved my
reading and writing as she seemed to favor me above many of the other students. I later found
this to be attributed to my mild ADHD and need for special instruction. This hindrance has
caused me to always struggle with learning though it has never been too much of an issue
However, I had truly begun writing before I started kindergarten as I would try to write my own
books to read that were easier than those my parents were giving me. This may have something
to do with my horrible handwriting as I essentially was tracing letters freehand.
When I began private school in the second grade, I began to write fully formed
paragraphs in the form of journal entries. I always despised writing them because the other kids
were so much more advanced and I felt as though my writing was inadequate. Things began to
get easier after I was diagnosed with ADHD and the teachers were give instructions to spend
more time on certain things with me. This was greatly appreciated as it was a small Christian
school and the belief was that God was supposed to help you through school, though I'm not

exactly sure how that makes any sense. I suppose the way I wrote for a long time was very
religiously centered. I incorporated God into many of the things I wrote due to the nature of my
schooling. By the time I was in the third grade I could write three paragraph essays, and when I
hit the fifth grade I was writing fully formed five paragraph essays with a thesis and closing
statement. During this time I invested myself into a reading program that had fairly straight
forward rules. There was a selections of books, each given a color according to its difficulty. The
colors were white, green, yellow, blue, red and black in that order. White, obviously, would be
the easiest to read and worth the least number of points while black was the hardest and worth
the most. These points were obtained through a test that included questions about the book, if
you took the test and correctly answered enough questions you were awarded the points which
you could trade for prizes and such. I worked hard to be able to read the black level books as
they were worth the most points and the top tier prizes were always the best. This gave me a
reason to read and, because I was increasing my reading ability and enjoying it at the same time,
it allowed me to become a more advanced reader through the constant practice and exposure to
the higher level books. By the time I was in the sixth grade I had began to write book reports,
which was a challenge I had never had to face before. Not only was I required to read a book, I
had to give a summary of it as well as evaluate certain areas of it. This taught me to pay attention
to what I was reading in order to retain the books information.
As I made my way into high school, my desire to read slowly declined. This was most
likely due to the fact that the books were required by the course to read. This meant that I was
unable to pick books that interested me and I was forced to read, what were often times boring
books that seemed to go on forever. As I took advanced placement courses, I was often times
given more papers or essays than actual homework and therefore my writing began to get better

due to constant practice. I owe most of my writing ability to my advanced placement English
teacher Mr. Miller, he single handedly changed the way I write and helped me to increase my
writing ability through hours of hard work. As I took these advanced placement courses I was
often times given books that were incredibly difficult to read, and I often times had to establish
some sort of guideline on how to read them. The one thing that had remained constant through
this time was my handwriting. In fact it is still, what I consider, very bad and I am actively trying
to change it. I, personally, am glad that in college most things are to be turned in electronically
because this eliminates the need to have pretty handwriting. I also believe that though it is not
as important, it is essential to have some form of technological literacy so you are able to keep
up with todays demand for technology. It seems as though so many of the classes are converting
to online assignments and such while ten years ago everything was based on paper.
Throughout my college career I intend to improve not only my handwriting, but also my
reading and writing skills. I am often required to read very high level books for courses and I feel
like this UWRT course will have a huge impact on my writing through the peer workshops and
teacher feedback.
Brannen,
I think you have all the beginnings of a great narrative here. I see a lot of
potential in the content you introduced, but overall I feel like youre just
skimming the surface of a lot of these topics. Remember, the purpose of this
narrative is for you to investigate your literacy history and reflect on what
those events meant to you in the form of a story. You need to spend some
more time developing the three aspects of a narrative: resolution,
significance, and details. If you take the time to develop some of these ideas,
you will have a really strong narrative.
Ghost grade: C-