Personal Literacy Narrative

     I learned how to read in kindergarten. I was a really poor kid and my parents had just gone through a divorce. While they were together, before I turned 5 ½, my grandmother, Nanny, and my older brother, Matt, had tried their best to teach me to read. I remember having Dr. Seuss books, but I was more interested in toys. I wasn’t one of those kids that wanted, or got, to be read bedtime stories. I just didn’t like reading. I don’t remember the first thing I read, or even the second, but I do remember the first book I read all the way through. It was 3^rd or 4^th grade in Mrs. Macomb’s class. The book was Holes, yeah, just like the movie. This might be why I was actually interested in it. At the time I thought the book was huge, the first “big” book I took on reading. I remember the whole class had to read the book, but that had never stopped me from not reading the book before. I had a lot of trouble reading in grade school. I was in LD, Learning Disability (that sounds so horrible when you say it out loud), classes for English until the 6^th grade. I still have trouble reading today. It is one of my biggest fears to read out loud. Today I still do not enjoy reading, just as I did not when I was a toddler. I usually get the summary of an article to read because I am such a slow reader. I could also call this laziness, but I can honestly say I do it because I hate reading. I know, harsh right? But really, I do. There are seldom times when I actually read, and when I do read books, it takes me about a year to get through the whole thing. I think this will be a struggle for me for the rest of my life.