Hall1
Bailey Hall
Professor Harris
English 101
November 6 2013
The Struggle
Growing up I think it is obvious to say that we have all encountered a struggle in our lives.
Whether it be not being able to read, having a speech impairment, lack of communication skills,
or the inability to be able to write. Face it we all have experienced at least one of the challenges
listed. Some of us may choose to improve or get help with the challenges that we have. While
others may choose to ignore their struggle, due to the fact that they may think they do not have a
problem or that their confidence is shattered so they give up. My struggle growing up was spelling,
reading and writing, I still struggle with these issues till this day.
Copyright © 2006 - 2013 Education.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
From a very young age I had difficulties with spelling. I could not spell a word to save my
life without it being spelled terribly wrong. I was easily the worst speller ever. I would misspell
the simplest like the word because, vacuum, and phone. My spelling improved over the years
thanks to flashcards. My mom would buy me flashcards of different words meant for first graders.
Hall2
My mother would first have me go to my room and study the flashcards for about ten to fifteen
minutes, and would then read the words to me and have me spell it back to her. If I spelled any of
the words wrong she would give me the flashcards of those words and make me study and quiz
me again. We would go through each word about five times each. She thought that I was dyslexic
because I would write my letters backwards or sometimes they would look like numbers. But I
eventually grew out of that stage in my life and began to write correctly.
Reading has always been of great difficulty for me over the years. I remember in the third
grade I was always in the lower reading groups and even had to stay and get extra practice on
reading. My third grade teacher at the time Mrs. Harthwrong would always try to show me different
methods when it came to reading. For instance she would read it slow for me, have me sound the
word out, or my favorite think of the word as a log chop it up, break it down and then say it all
together. Doing those exercises did frustrate me a little at the time because I wish that reading
would have just came naturally to me like it did for the other kids. I wanted reading words and
understanding them to not be difficult for me. But other than that I liked my one on one sessions
with my teacher it helped me a lot, I was able to go at my own pace. Looking back on it now I am
very grateful that my teacher was very patient and helped me with my reading.
Throughout my elementary school years I improved on my reading tremendously I was no
longer in the low reading groups in fact I was considered an advanced reader. Following
elementary school and the beginning of middle school I began to gain confidence in my reading
and writing skills. I felt like I was such an amazing writer I never received a bad critique on my
essays by my teachers over the years. My confidence in literacy was at a high when I started
seventh grade. I was in the advance English class and received good grades on all my assignments
in that class, I was happy and in a good place in my life. Eight grade year I had tremendously
Hall3
improved on my reading and writing skills, well so I thought anyways. Eight grade English class
happened and that teacher was extremely harsh when it came to anything especially our writing. I
remember I had to do an essay on Frederick Douglas, I completely bombed that essay, or when we
did a unit on poetry. Her criticisms completely shattered my confidence as a good writer. I felt like
I had failed, and everything that I had done well in my writing meant nothing. I felt like a terrible
writer and had given up on even trying to write my papers well, fearing I am going to just get a
bad grade anyways so I stopped trying.
Freshmen year I became bold and took an honors English class. I figured that it will help
me gain good writing tools and methods so I could improve on my writing. My English teacher
was Mrs. Kassabaum, she was an amazing teacher she made it her mission that all of us improve
our vernacular. When she graded my writing she wasn’t so harsh she was very helpful. One of our
essays she assigned to us was a character from a Greek mythology book, my person was
Agamemnon. I had found Greek mythology to be very intriguing and fun to learn about so when I
wrote my essay it was easy to talk about. I had poured my heart into that essay and it all worked
out I had received a good grade on the essay, the best grade I have ever received on an essay in
fact. I went all out with that essay and even made an appointment to meet with her at lunch so we
could go over my essay and see what I needed to do to make the essay better. And she would have
little conferences where she would go over our essays one by one and tell us what she thought
about them. I remember her saying that I was not a bad writer I just need more depth when I wrote.
Very confusing at the time. Like depth? What does she mean depth? I have to be emotional? Mrs.
Kassabaum made me a better writer, she had put so much faith into me and was the reason why I
decided to take honors English again my sophomore year of high school.
Hall4
My sophomore year I decided to English two honors with Mrs. Myers. That woman forever
changed my views on reading. Like most teens my age I wasn’t that fond of reading. Mrs. Meyers
was an avid reader and wanted to inspire us teens to read more. She wanted to end “readocide”,
genocide on reading and get people to read more. So she required every student to read a new book
every month and whatever reading we had to read as a class. Her passion for reading went further
than our classroom she was able to persuade the principle to enforce SSR to the entire school for
fifteen minutes every Tuesday and Thursday. At the time I had detested reading but with her
passion and determination I gained a love for reading. I enjoyed the books we read awesome books
like Fahrenheit 451, Julius Caesar, and Animal Farm. Mrs. Myers made me a better more avid
reader and I will always be grateful to have had her as my English teacher. She was able to turn a
kid who hated reading to an avid reader.
Growing up I think it is easy to say that we have all had some sort of literacy struggle.
Weather that be not being able to read, speech impairment, bad communication skills, or inability
to write. But we eventually get help with our literacy issues. We should never be ashamed if we
are struggling with something related to literacy because someone else is probably experiencing
the same struggle as you are. If you ask for help you can improve on your literacy struggle.
Hall5