Literacy Narrative

Dakota Miller

01/12/2016

Eng. 111

Literacy Narrative

I began reading at an early age. My mother would read for

me from time to time if I asked her too, but more often than; she

taught me the alphabet as well as how to read. The majority of the

books we had were from the Berenstain Bears series. She was

successful in teaching me and before I started kindergarten I read

my first book, If The Dinosaurs Came Back, to anybody who would

listen. From then on I was always reading. It go to the point that I

asked for a headlamp so I could read in the car. The Boxcar

Children, Hank The Cowdog, and just about everything written by

Louis Lamour. As I got older I began to read more non-fiction

books. Especially if it was history, and even more so if it was about

war. I also began reading magazine articles and books about fitness,

rifles, and raising cattle. It didn’t take me long to realize that I could

obtain a lot of information simply by reading.

All throughout school I read books that were not required,

but related to topics we were talking about in all of my classes. This

helped me a great deal in understanding what the teacher was

talking about on a higher level. Because of this I was able to write

better reports, and better answers to essay questions. Reading also

improved my ability to spell and form paragraphs in research

papers. It was also very helpful in my text comprehension to the

point that I could answer questions that had a reading selection,

simply by reading the sentences that applied and not the whole

thing. I am thankful for this skill because I can’t remember any of

the skills I was taught in class throughout the years, or even if we

were taught any specific ones. My favorite thing about reading

however, is that it allows me to talk to many people about many

different topics. Talking to them; I learn new things and make new

friends. All because I read something interesting.

I believe that reading will still play a large roll in my journey

through higher education. In fact, it will probably help me more than

it had in high school. As they say, knowledge is power, and I believe

that the more you know the better off you are. The best way for me

to learn and succeed is to read. However; in order to succeed in

college I needed to learn many new, and better literacy skills.

College composition class was very effective in teaching me these

things.

The past semester has improved my reading and literacy skills more than I could have

imagined. I also dusted off and refined a few that I had not used in quites some time. My

Favorite of the skills I have learned is the SQ4R method of taking notes. Before; I would

read the entire selection and then write down what I remembered. Now I write down what

I don't understand and paraphrase each section as I go. This saves me time because I do

not have to re-read any part of the selection and the notes are already finished. From these

notes a complete paragraph or paper can be written. Cornell notes work nicely with this

method because it allows you to ask questions, answer them, and paraphrase all the

information you have gathered all on one page. What I learned that benefited me the most

was time managment. Although I am still working on mastering this skill it has helped me

a great deal. My biggest problem with doing schoolwork was that I would try to do other

things at the same time. Watching television and playing with my dog being the most

common. We learned that humans do not truly have the ability to multi-task, and in order

to be more productive we must try to focus on one thing at a time. I have found this to be

true for myself and it is a skill that I truly hope to refine over the years. I trust that what

I've learned in this class will continue to aid me in my college journey. I am thankful for

the knowledge I've obtained, and hope that my future classes teach me as much.