Isela Pena

Improving Literacy
I remember as a child my mom turning on the T.V and putting on our favorite shows
Teletubbies and Barney and Friends early in the morning. My twin sister and I loved these shows
and now I realize why my mother turned it on for us. As a mother who didn't speak anything but
spanish, she tried helping my sister and I to at least hear how the English language sounded like.
Many people argue that the best way to teach a child a language is to speak to them; however,
not knowing english made it impossible for both of my parents to teach it to us. For this reason,
my first language became Spanish and caused me to struggle when going into school. Growing
up as a multilingual student made me challenge myself more and has helped me become a better
reader and writer.
I am a Mexican-American who grew up learning both spanish and english. Although I
was introduced to english at an early age I was able to notice a difference in myself and many of
my classmates. Spanish was my first language, taught by my parents and relatives. Most of my
relatives came to the United States at a later age where english became hard for them to adapt to.
For this reason, spanish was what was spoken and I did not necessarily have someone who could
have taught me english. Therefore, going into preschool was hard since I did not know as much
english. I remember crying every time my mom dropped me off because I felt scared and lost for
not knowing how to communicate to my teacher and peers.
Furthermore, before entering pre-school the only english I really heard was from
watching tv shows such as the teletubbies and Barney and friends. With this said, preschool was
the first place where I had to adapt to the english language and learn things such as the alphabet
and counting. In my preschool/kinder class I remember having to do weekly homework packets
that required me to trace the alphabet, numbers, colors, etc. Using these packets and writing on
the paper with 2 parallel lines and a dashed line in between was the first time I was introduced to
this type of material. This was the beginning of my transition from learning not only spanish, but
english as well. Another thing that helped improve my literacy was story time. Sitting in the
squared carpet for story time was my favorite part of the day, especially when it came to The
Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle or The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. I remember these
being my favorite books and reading and rereading them. Not only was I reading them for fun,
but also learning things like the days of the week, fruits, counting, and more. These educational
books along with others were read to us and ultimately was a way that I started learning and
gaining more information.
As the years advanced, I remember feeling behind especially when it came to writing.
Grammar was something that I always struggled with, which greatly affected my writing. I
would receive my report card with a note from my teacher asking my mom to take me to the
library and for me to read more. Id feel embarrassed because I wasn't good enough and came to
think that something was wrong with me. As a ML student as Ferris explains in Multilingual
Students and College Writing, I had language issues and was falling behind. The lack of english
caused me to have a harder time understanding the material and greatly affected my writings.(25)
Even though I struggled with this more at a younger age, I often times do find myself now with
similar problems and challenges Ferris described; therefore, I had to work harder and do extra
things. It wasn't until third or fourth grade that I noticed I wasn't the only one who was
struggling. I was placed in an English Language Development(ELD) class where I was finally
comfortable in asking for help and really understanding the material better. ELD is a program
that helps students advance and is dedicated for students whose first language was not english. I
was also in the after-school program during elementary where I was required to go to tutoring
and get extra help. Doing these extra things really helped my literacy and helped me be prepared
for High school.
The summer after 8th grade was the start of International Baccalaureate and was in this
program throughout all of high school. High school was a period where I found myself
struggling and stressing about my teachers expectations. I was recommended to enter this
program that is dedicated to help students prepare for college. That being said, teachers had high
expectation and required us to do a lot of work. Junior year was the most difficult of all, I had a
strict and picky english teacher who really made me challenge myself. With her I was required to
read a lot of books throughout the year, annotate almost everything I read, do an essay of length
1,500-3,000 words every week, and apart do all of my other homework from other classes.This
year in high school was very difficult for me, it required me to pull a lot of allnighters, and work
extra hard. I remember wanting to give up and getting out of the program every time from all the
stress I felt. I felt like I wasn't good enough and struggled with balancing all of my homework
with sports, clubs, and community service. With the support and help from my parents and
friends I was able to complete high school and learn many new things. One thing for sure was
knowing how to balance everything and becoming a better reader and writer.
In addition, High school was also the place that I learned a new type of Spanish. Like
Anzaldua explained, speaking to different groups requires to speak to them in a different way. In
my spanish class; although I already knew spanish, I was still able to learn much more. I learned
more of the proper spanish which is something different then what I spoke at home. It is where I
also saw my weaknesses in Spanish and notice how much spanish I had lost from not speaking it
as often. Likewise, in How to Tame a Wild Tongue Anzaldua states that Chicanas feel
uncomfortable talking in Spanish to Latinas.(58) I found this interesting and made me realize
how even I oftentimes find it uncomfortable speaking to Latinas as well. It's every time I go to
Mexico that I feel embarrassed for not knowing the Spanish language as well. Now I speak
mostly English or if I talk to my parents I speak spanglish. There is never a time other than when
I go to Mexico that I find myself having a long conversation in Spanish. For this reason, I believe
that learning english myself and parents has affected my spanish literacy. It has led me to
speaking spanglish and ultimately forgetting many of the spanish vocabulary.
In conclusion, after seeing my progress in Literacy it has made me see how my struggles
are what has helped me push myself and become a better reader and writer. As a multilingual
student I was able to get into different programs throughout elementary that prepared me for high
school. Likewise, being in the IB program throughout high school I feel really helped my literacy
and be better prepared for college.

Revision Summary
 After doing the peer reviews, two of my peers gave me suggestions on how I can better
this essay. For this reason, I have gone back and made some changes. One of the things that my
peers advised me to change was some of my word choices and repetitiveness. Therefore, I read
over my essay and changed the wording in some of my sentences, and tried finding grammar
mistakes.
Furthermore, my peers not only gave me negative feedback but positive as well. For
example, my peers mentioned how I had good examples that showed my transition for learning
not only Spanish, but English as well.
Also, another thing that we discussed was how many quotes and paraphrases were
required for this assignment. One of my peers commented on one of my paraphrases and told me
that it had to be a quote instead. We we unsure of this requirement but decided to leave my
quotes and paraphrases as I had them.
Another thing that I also changed was that I tried to further explain my parents role in
learning both English and Spanish. I mentioned how I had many struggles in learning both
languages and tried to further explain my reasons for this. Overall, I felt like my peers did not
give me as much feedback as I expected, but I have gone back and tried to fix my mistakes.
However, it is sometimes difficult for me to see my own mistakes especially when it comes to
grammar and word choices. For this reason, I believe that I might still have many grammar
mistakes and plan for my next draft to further fix these mistakes.