After my fight with
learning my alphabet I was much more cooperative in the rest of the learning to
read process. I find it funny that I was so stubborn with my parents because
now I am not stubborn at all. Between first and second grade I learned to read
more fluently. I remember loving making the books in first grade where we would
get to color them. We even made shoeboxes in art class to put all these paper
books in. These were the short simple books with a few word sentences on each
page. We had fourth grade buddies who would come in each week to read a few of
our paper books with us. In second grade I loved to read even more because I
finally could read chapter books. Some of the first chapter books I remember
reading were Arthur beginning chapter books. I loved watching the show so it
was easy for me to be interested in reading these. My mom would read a chapter
or so with me every day. I enjoyed the attention I got from this time I had
with my mom. Once I got to third grade and above I would read all the time.
This is when I started to get into series books. As a middle elementary student,
I loved The Adventures of Mary-Kate and
Ashley, Judy Blume’s The Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing series, and Beverly Cleary’s Ramona and Beezus series. I
enjoyed reading books in series because I would become invested in the
characters and I wanted to know what would happen to them next in their lives.
I found the Mary-Kate and Ashley ones fun because these were mystery books.
Each one was a different mystery, and I loved trying to solve the mystery with
them. Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary’s books were fun for me to read too because
both dealt with having younger siblings. Since I have two younger siblings it
was easy for me to relate to Beezus and Peter when they would talk about what
it was like. I also really enjoyed kids even as a kid so reading about younger
kids was cute and interesting to me. Even though in elementary school I loved
to read after kindergarten, I was not the best reader in my class. I know I had
to work hard at it. My mom tells me that out of my siblings and I, she had to
work with me the most even though I read all the time.
