E.Y.C. Davila First Blog

 

Fellow reader (or stalker, whichever you prefer), my name is Edison and I'm a freshman at NJCU.  I'm majoring in history and I'm one of the very few in my family to go University.  Main reason for that is that most of my family is in Guatemala and education was limited in the areas my parents were raised in. 

My earliest experience was in 4th grade when I was reading books that were of "Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot vs." franchise and remember wanting to read all the books but while I was reading the books at school or at home I remembered wanting to read more and try reading different books that aren't like those and wanting to get better at reading and learning new words.  My teacher encouraged me to start reading more because he saw potential.  Before 4th grade I had to learn English at my old district and they didn't help much when it came to learning and understanding English as a language and in literary so it felt like I was way behind than most others in my grade when I started at a new district in 4th grade.  During 4th grade, I knew very little English so it was gonna be very different reading in a language I spoke very little let alone reading a book.

My school district always put me in speech to get better at English and to have a better understanding with the language and the words spoken throughout the language.  Whenever reading or trying to read and learn something I struggled with was pronouncing words that seemed difficult for me to comprehend.  One thing that always annoyed me about reading was whenever we'd have to review what we read and it felt unnecessary when I was younger because what is the point of reviewing and saying what we thought or what was going on.  Later I realized it's important because it could help understand what will happen next in the book and make it easier down the line when reading the book.  I don't remember any activities I enjoyed or remember taking part in because most of the time while taking speech that's where the activities occurred for me but I never really enjoyed them and felt like I was behind on English than I already was.  Currently in my life I try to read but most of the things I read are usually sports articles and history articles.

The way I continue reading or using literacy in my life is through sports and history articles, literacy should still be in everyone's life but it should always be in things you like or are interested in because it makes it worth reading when you're form of reading or learning is through your interests and not what you are forced to read most of the time.  My early issue with learning English is that I would be made to read things and topics I wasn't interested in, I learn best through pictures but most of the time I learn with words if it's a topic I'm fascinated in and can understand to some degree.