Reading

Brittanie was given an assignment in English to write a paper to describe their reading habits as a child and as an adult. Did they live in a house filled with books? Did they enjoy reading? What were their favorite books? Who were the readers and non readers in their family? And it was to be put in a personal essay. Here is an excerpt from her essay:

My fifth grade teacher had a way of “conquering our fears” of reading aloud in class. She would randomly pick students from the room to not just read aloud at their desk, but to get their book, walk to the front of the class, set the book on the podium and read to the class with everyone looking at them. If you were a slow reader, the class would all stare at you with this “is he/she stupid” look on their faces. This method did not “conquer” my fear of reading aloud. Instead it conquered my desire to read. Every day I found myself less and less excited about reading. I was one of the slow readers. I was one of the few that got the inquisitive looks and it made me feel about a foot tall. No one should feel like that in a classroom. The only way a child can truly learn is by feeling comfortable. I was not comfortable. The thing that bothered me even more was that I wanted to love reading. But I was never given a real chance to enjoy it.

Her professor loved her paper and today in class asked her to read it out loud to the class. She was proud that he really liked it but couldn't believe that after reading about how horrible it was for her to read out loud in class that he would ask her to read it out loud in class! I told her that he probably thought she has moved past it or maybe wasn't thinking when he did it. But she needs to forget about how slow she read it and enjoy the fact that he thinks she has real talent.