Okoro 1 Onyeomachi Okoro Prof. Collin Ludlow-.

Mattson English 114 13 September 2013

Grandma Esther and Me When I think of reading nothing significant comes to my mind besides the few books that I enjoyed reading as a young girl. I usually bring to mind the past books that I stayed up late readingthe ones that made me think to myself that not all books are boring. My memories of reading seem to not hold any significance to me but, when I think of where it all began it is where I really understand its importance. It started with a book series by Florence M. Lindstrom and my grandma Esther by my side, and that is how I, at the age of 3, began to learn how to read. Like a normal 3 year old, I was not enrolled in school and was anticipating the day when I could throw a backpack over my shoulders and ride the big yellow bus. My senior sister was six years old, at the time, and was a student at Ontario Christian Elementary School. She was at the level where she was beginning to learn things such as spelling, computing singular numbers, and reading books that I, at the time, thought were the equivalent to novels. I knew I was little and I wanted more than anything else to do what big kids do and go to school. Not only did I just want to attend school but I wanted to learn new things. I wanted to gain knowledge, knowledge I knew I didnt have and I could only achieve by going to school. At a young age I had already developed a deeper quest for knowledge so it was to my delight when I found out that I was going to have the same opportunity as my sister to learn.

Okoro 2 My parents believe in an early start education-wise and applied it to how they raised my siblings and I. Both my sister and I have birthdays that pass the cutoff date for enrollment. This meaning, we were actually supposed to be enrolled in school the year after, but that didnt stop my parents from putting us in any ways. My mom planned on enrolling me into preschool a little early so she decided that I should prepare. Since both my parents worked, my grandma, who lived with us at the time, was always there whenever there was an extra hand that was needed. Therefore when it came time to preparing me for school my grandma was ready and more than willing for the task. My grandmother also happened to be a school teacher before she retired so she was familiar with teaching children. I was excited to hear that I would be attending Grandmas School and although it wasnt quite the same kind of school my sister went to, it was enough for me. My first day of Grandmas School I was up and showered by 8:30. I was so excited to start the day that I devoured my peanut butter sandwich and chugged down my chocolate milk. My schedule was set up so that I had a reading lesson, a short bathroom break, a writing lesson, then I was free to play for the rest of the day. My grandma was up and had things already waiting for me at the dining table; there were pencils, paper, flashcards, small posters, and a few books. My grandma invited me to sit down next to her, and so school began. My grandma started off by having us review the alphabet and making the sound for each letter, something I thought was somewhat doable. She then showed me the flashcards which began our first lesson of vowels. My grandma explained to me the letters of the alphabet that were considered vowels and why they were. We then proceeded to sounding out the vowels in a repetitive pattern so that I would be able to remember them. For the writing portion my grandma had printed sheets of the alphabet outlined with dashes. My task was to trace on top of the dashes that way I would be

Okoro 3 familiar with the motion of writing the individual letters of the alphabet. Once I got the hang of those activities I then upgraded to writing the letters with no support at all. The first times writing the letters looked like scribbles compared to the already printed letters but my grandma just kept encouraging me to write them out again until I got it right. It took some time but after a while I got to a point where I was able to write my name in a somewhat legible fashion. It was a few lessons later that, my grandma finally introduced to me the four books we would be reading by the author Florence Lindstrom. My grandma and I continued the lessons daily five days out of the week. At the beginning of each session we would review on what we had gone over the day before. I was learning how each letter of the alphabet played a part in the formation of each word. The next step was now to then apply all the letter pronunciations to the books. My mom purchased the books from Christian Liberty Academy Homeschooling at the kindergarten level. The books came in a set of four but I chose to start off with the book titled Its Fun to Read which looking back is ironic because of my current disinterest in reading books. Reading the stories with my grandma was exciting- she would, at first, read with me slowly then left me alone to finish up the sentence. Every week that we read I would struggle less and start picking up on the grammar rules that I had learned from my grandma. She would even let me venture out into reading other books after school was over. By the time it came for me to be enrolled in preschool I was excited and confident that I was ready. I was excited because I would be able to be around kids my age and make new friends. Arriving on my first say I saw the classroom had a white boards, desks, and chairs. There was also an area with toys and small books for us to read. Seeing the books I knew I would be able to show off to the other kids my newfound reading skills. In my efforts to impress

Okoro 4 the other kids I realized quickly that most of them were not even able to read at all. My almost fouryearold self didnt know at the time that it was pointless to know how to read in pre school. All the teachers took it upon themselves to read us stories. I also remember being excited hearing the positive comments I got from my teachers telling me I wrote like a 1st grader. I would come home and tell my grandma what the teachers would say about me and feel so special when she would express how proud she was of me. Even though I was in school my grandma would check my writing and even read books with me when she had the chance. Looking back, I have realized that I was so much more fascinated with reading as a young child compared to my feelings on reading now. In my mind, reading was the key to knowledge and I wanted so badly to be able to fill my mind with new information. For the first time I was able to accurately comprehend the things I saw around me. I no longer had to rely on the pictures to see what messages were being conveyed. I began to see how complicated language was. As I began to read more and more books at higher levels I began to see bigger words and even words that didnt sound the same as how they looked on paper. But as I grew up, reading became less and less interesting to me. I went from avidly reading book series after book series to picking up one book every once in a while. Reading didnt mean the same to me as it did in my younger days it wasnt new it wasnt exciting to me anymore. I never realized how important those moments with my grandma were until I took the time to sit down and think of what that experience did for me. My grandma introduced to me a new way of language acquisition and, with that, opened my eyes to a world of language and literature. Grandmas School was the start that led me to begin my journey into literacy. This experience is important to me because this was the first time that I was able to expand upon the English that I had come to know. Not only did I expand upon it but I became more fluent in it

Okoro 5 I could read, write, and could even correctly structure a sentence. These things are not just something that is important in childhood but is something that follows you through your life. I would not be the student that I am without Grandmas School. The way I speak and even the way I think is related to what I learned as a child with my grandma. The same things she taught me as a young girl are things that I still apply in my everyday life, which is why it holds such a memorable place in my mind and heart. I have had many teachers in my life that have come and gone but none of them compare to the one that was there with me firstMy grandma.