Reading is something that allows a person an escape from the real word. It allows for a person to become something else if they want to, at least for a short period of time. Reading is an art that can take a person’s mind to another world, place, or a different person’s life. It allows people to see a subject from someone else’s point-of-view, besides their own for once. Reading is something that can be captivating, adventurous, heartwarming, or heartbreaking. There are no limits to writing, or what a person can read. Many things that I have encountered in my life have influenced and shaped the reader I am today such as my family, school, and many different books.
Family shapes a person in many different ways, from their beliefs and morals to even how they clean. One particular person in my family has helped shape the reader I am today, which would be my mother. My mother and I have both always been very close to each other. I remember how she used to sit on my bed with me at night and read me Junie B. Jones books and the New Testament of the Bible. I loved how she would sit and read me Junie B. Jones because I loved hearing about a character my age who was always up to something new the next book. The young character was always getting herself into trouble around each corner, and that is something that a young child can connect to in a book. There is one particular quote from the book series by the author Barbara Park says, “A little glitter can turn your whole day around,” that stood out to me as a little girl, which I found on Good Reads webpage, and the quote is by Barbara Park. It tells a person that a little thing can change your day from gloomy and sad to happy. My mother and I would also go back and forth reading the New Testament to each other. We would do so because at my church if you read all of that part of the bible you earned a title called Honor Star, were I got to wear a pretty white dress and got to earn a crown. Reading has always been the way my mother and I have connected. She used to tell me about the times that she was growing up in Kentucky back in the hollers in the 1960s, and how she would read Nancy Drew. It helped our relationship grow as mother and daughter.
Family is important, but it is not the only aspect of my life that has helped me develop into the reader I am today. Another aspect that has been crucial in my development in reading was school and a teacher named Mrs. Carver. When I was younger I struggled with reading quite a bit. I was put into a lower reading group in my class, but got bored with the simple books too fast, so the teacher did not know where to place me. My teacher insisted on me taking reading lessons after school, so I did. I took the classes for a couple of weeks and started growing as a reader. Mrs. Carver, the teacher that helped me, taught me how to increase my reading skills and showed me that I could grow in my reading skills as a student. She was kind, compassionate, and took the time with me to teach me. She knew I struggled, but she still had patience with me no matter how difficult of a time I was having. Because of Mrs. Carver I started reading above my grade level and started loving reading even more.
Another aspect of my life that helped me grow as a reader was a book I read called “The Giving Tree,” it taught me many life lessons and showed me how a story in a book can truly get a message across. The book “The Giving Tree“ is a book that carried great impact on me, which I found on YouTube on the Reading Pioneers page, and it is called The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein Read Aloud. I read the book so many times that I have lost count. It teaches a person many lessons throughout life and how every little action matters. It shows how a relationship between two people or things can change over time. People will change, grow, and adapt over time. People will never always be exactly the same as they once were. Life goes on and so do people, but it is always important to stay true to who you are.
Many things have changed me as a reader throughout my life. I have changed in my reading abilities and developed them over the years. My reading skills will constantly be changing and developing. I will always continue to love reading and how books influence my life as a person. Books are an impactful thing, and they can book lights of hope for people.
The photo was one that I personally took with my own camera. It was a project for my senior project in high school.
Little Moments 