Affective Dimensions of Reading

All throughout my elementary and secondary education, I was a struggling reader. I was always one or two grade levels behind. However, I loved to read in my spare time. The Magic Treehouse books, the Harry Potter series, Boxcar Children books, you name it and I read it. I also loved sports. I lived and breathed soccer and basketball. But when it came to school, I struggled. I had to put great effort into everything I did, and I still do. I first became passionate about English during my senior year of high school. I was going through some tough times with my family and my English teacher assigned two books that were very influential to me at the time. This teacher challenged me and helped me become the reader and writer that I am today. My first year of college, I started taking literature and writing classes and my passion for English grew. I completed my minor in Psychology and found a passion there.  I loved learning about why individuals think and act the way they do. Although many of these English and Psychology classes were very demanding and difficult for me, I tried my very best to learn the material because I was passionate about the subject.

A couple years ago, my younger brother was in elementary school. He was also struggling with reading and didn't enjoy it. He was discouraged with school and had to work very hard to get good grades (homework lasted 3-4 hours a night for him). I'm not sure how it all started but we both started exchanging books. I'd give him books that I thought he would like and he gave me books that he liked reading (that's how I read Diary of a Wimpy Kid). I think this personal reading helped him realize that reading wasn't all that bad and that he could get better, and he did. We still exchange books to this day. We both actually enjoy reading, even though it doesn't always come easy to us. 

I hope to inspire a passion for reading and for learning in my students. Especially if the student is a struggling reader like my brother was, I hope to help them improve their reading skills and instill a love for reading. Confucius said, “You cannot open a book without learning something”.  I’d like to think that this is true. I have found that even though I didn’t like an assigned book, I still learned at least something from it. I would love to be able to have a good rapport with my students where I could suggest books they would enjoy to them, and maybe have them give me books to read. I think this kind of open, pro-learning environment will encourage students to feel comfortable with me, their classmates, and their own learning.  Hopefully, I can learn how to best help students acquire skills to become successful in their schooling and in life, and skills that will help them evolve into someone who loves to read.