Zach Hegler

September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

My Development of Literacy
My first development as a reader and writer began in kindergarten when I first started
learning. Through the stages of grades I learned more and more each year. I remember in third
grade is when I first learned how to write in cursive. I didnt write much in cursive after the
third grade so Im surprised I remember what I know from then. Through the years we would
always do vocabulary test and quizzes to further advance our language and words for better
communication and understanding. I would also learn words naturally from hearing family,
friends, and television. There were many different ways I developed as a reader and writer.
Most of someones learning experience begins at the young age. www.rif.org states that
Most children develop certain communication skills as they move through the early stages of
learning language. I remember before I even started school my parents had all these
educational toys as a baby like the buttons you push that match the color that you pressed. Also
the wheel where you spin it, the arrow will land on an animal then state the animals name and the
sound it makes. They also had books that would talk to me as I was reading along with the
words. I would sit on my parents bed and pretend I was reading what the book was actually
telling to me. I understood the words and thought I was actually reading the books, but without
the voice reading aloud to me there was no way I would have been able to read by myself. But
because of the electronic books, and conversation, I was soon able to read on my own.
After I started kindergarten is when we started from square one. This is when all of the
reading and writing skills would begin to escalate quickly. We first started with letters.
Learning the alphabet and the sounds of each letter was probably the most critical part in
learning to read and write. Like without the alphabet we wouldnt be able to truly understand
what we are reading. After learning the alphabet we learned to connect the words to one another

Zach Hegler
September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

to make small words. Which included words like, the, what, why, is, it, those are the first few
words I learned as a child. This increased my vocabulary and got me started on the basic
concept of how letter and words work. Although I knew words and what they meant, learning
letters and sounds made it easier for me to understand different words that I have never seen
before. And the words we learned would get bigger and bigger as we went on through the year.
The only true way to get better was to practice. And thats exactly what we did throughout our
years of school. We practice reading and writing through every grade, adding more and more
knowledge each year.
I first remember doing stems in the sixth grade. From the sixth grade up we would have
stem test to learn parts of a word even if we didnt understand the whole word. Stems are where
you get a prefix from words, and you name the meaning of the word. For example pre- means
before, like prehistoric means before history, and pre-game means before game. Stems are a
great way to have an idea of what a word may mean. So through my grades in school I feel that
seventh grade helped me in my reading and writing skills more than any other time. In seventh
grade I had this teacher, Mr. McMahan. He was my teacher English teacher, and probably one
of the most difficult teachers I have ever had. He was hard on all of his students, but he also
showed he cared about his students. At the top of every paper we ever wrote (which was lot of
papers) we would have to write There is greatness inside me in the top left box. Im not really
sure why, but this was one of his ways of teaching, and making us believe in ourselves. At
first I laughed almost every time I wrote it, but it began to grow on me and actually did give me a
little confident boost before I started writing. Every weekend we would have a minimum of two
page essay due the next Monday. We not once got a break from an essay. Not over
Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, or anything. I thought that was the worst possible thing

Zach Hegler
September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

ever imagined. He would give us topics varying over anything and we would write a typical
three paragraph essay minimum of two pages every time. At first it was hard, but after writing
so many it came rather easy, and wasnt that big of a deal to me anymore. He would also time us
on our reading and assign us a number of pages we must have read each day and we would keep
track of our reading in logs that he would come by and check each day. We would walk into
class, get out our reading logs, and then he would have a topic on the board and we would free
write as much as we could as fast as we could. After he checked all the reading logs he would
call time on the writing journals and we would then count how many words we wrote. Each day
we were supposed to have a higher number than the day before. It was an exercise to get us
thinking, and to train us to write faster to help us out for whenever the time comes to takes notes
in the future whenever the teacher/professor is moving fast. And I feel that this exercise actually
worked. I actually saw my speed in writing gradually grow and now I have a easy time writing
down what is on the board when my professors are lecturing. As far as our writing essays we
had an outline paper that we filled out, and each week we would have a test, at first some of the
answers were already marked on the essay outline, and some were fill in the blank, and as time
went on he would take sections off of the outline test, and towards the end of the year we were
filling out the whole outline without any words already being on the paper. We eventually
memorized the layout of how we were supposed to write essays. He had us writing with an
introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion to sum up the main points. That is
probably my favorite way to write essays considering I have worked on so many that way. The
way Mr. McMahan taught has developed me into the reader and writer I am today. Through all
these little exercises he did and his ways of teaching I could really tell my literacy improved and

Zach Hegler
September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

it was the biggest improvement throughout my school career so far. I am not the best
reader/writer, but I could be a lot worse.
Not only has school developed me as a reader and writer, but my community has affected
me also. My community is a big place that has affected me because that is where I spend a
majority of my time. Im from Kings Mountain and that is where I learned everything I know
about reading and writing except for what I have obtained from the internet and television.
Digital sources are a good way to develop reading and writing. I know one of the main
television shows that taught me was The Magic School Bus. As children we learn even when we
dont realize it. I remember this one specific episode where they shrunk in their magic school
bus and went inside this boys knee, when they got there they started getting attacked by white
blood cells, and to this day that is how I learned how white blood cells are basically the
defenders of the body and are the reason cuts scab up. We even watched some Magic School
Bus shows during class if we got lucky and a television got rolled into the room. When I was in
school using digital technology we would always use funbrain, englishbanana, and websites like
that to learn digitally. Sparknotes and Schmoop were also websites that have developed my
reading skills. I have spent a good bit of time reading from these websites and the only way to
become a better reader is by reading. They were more of a way to develop my speed of reading
and get a basic summary of whats happening. Since they only give summarys of novels you
have to use your imagination to fill in what you think all happened in the novel so you can
basically make it your own little adventur
Another thing that has developed my literature as a reader and writer are my friends. The
people I hang around affect how I use everyday language, which affects the words I put onto

Zach Hegler
September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

paper. The people I was around affected the slang I used, and some of the words transferred onto
papers I wrote. Back in elementary school we had these things called AR (accelerated Reading)
points. Each book had a certain amount of AR points. The bigger books, like Harry Potter; were
worth a lot of points (around fifteen plus), and smaller books are worth less points since they
dont take as long to read. We had a certain of number of AR points we had to get at the each of
each month in order to receive a grade. At the end of the year the top students with the most AR
points would get to go do something special. Whenever I went to elementary school the top five
students would get to go in a limo to this restaurant called Fatz that was about thirty minutes
from the school. The students rewarded would get a free ride in a limo and get a free meal while
the other students were in school. These students definitely had to earn the reward though. AR
points was one of the main reasons I read whenever I was growing up. Without it being a
grade/us getting rewards, I wouldnt have read nearly as much as I did. Im not the type that can
read for fun (even though I wish I was). I feel like avid readers tend to have a better writing
skills, and a wider vocabulary than people who dont take advantages of books; who watch the
movies instead of reading the book (like me).
Junior year of high school is when all of my reading and writing skills would be tested.
This was the test that all of my skills would be put together to write the ultimate paper. At Kings
Mountain high school every junior was required to write a junior paper which was a research
paper on a topic of our choice, but it had to connect with what we were wanting to do our senior
project on which made picking a topic twice as hard. We could pick any topic we wanted, but
we had to write a six to seven page research paper on the topic we chose and writing six to seven
pages about one thing was a great challenge. But everything I learned from beginning of time to
now was all going to be used in this paper. From letters, similes, metaphors, paragraphs, periods,

Zach Hegler
September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

etc. I did my junior paper on history. It was all about the history of the world and what history
meant to us as individuals. Because without history we would know nothing about the past and,
and would be vulnerable to making the same mistakes that we did decades/centuries ago (The
Great Depression). Just like without knowing history I wouldnt be able to know/understand
how reading and writing came about. In order to write these papers I researched through books
and articles and found out information that I didnt know and transferred it over. My writing
teacher helped me to researched and write in faster speeds in order to get the paper done in a
quicker amount of time. It also gave me the motivation that I could do all the work if I focused
and worked in increments.
The senior project was something all seniors had to do in order to graduate. Since my
junior paper was on history as a whole I had to do my senior project on history. For my senior
project I volunteered at the museum in town. The director of the museum Adria Focht, had me
write a paper on the history of King Mountain. Within that paper I had many different topics
like the hospitals history, doctor history, market history, banking history, etc. But without the
use of my writing and reading skills I would not have been able to graduate. My reading and
writing skills that I developed helped me to be where I am today. Not only did my reading and
writing abilities help me to pass, they also developed while working on these big projects. I
believe writing develops with practice, and those two papers were a whole lot of practice. Junior
paper and senior project were definitely the hardest papers I have ever wrote. And honestly I
think my seventh grade teacher prepared me for those papers more than anyone/anything else.
The reason I dont take my literacy skills for granted is because of experiences with my
family. My family is intelligent and everything, but when it comes to literature I would have to
say thats their weak spot. Whenever typing up letters, resumes, and stuff like that they need

Zach Hegler
September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

assistance from me, or my sister (whos in the tenth grade). Their spelling is off, and their
sentence structures are not the best. My parents/grandparents didnt get to grow up with the
education I was blessed to grow up with. My school, family, and community has made me the
writer I am today. My family encouraged me to keep learning and to do the best I can. My
teachers cared and did what they were supposed to do (and more) to enhance my literature. I am
thankful for everything my education program and community did to get me where I am at, and I
plan to continue to grow with what I have learned and the support I have been given.