Reading and writing is one of the most valuable teachings anyone could learn about. Depending on where you are from, where you have learned, and your family background, it can play a major role in one’s learning. Learning how to read and write has influenced and shaped my understanding of my own academic literacy.
When I was in elementary school and it was reading time, we would read our own individual books and class readings in silence after, we would grab our writing notebooks and write about what we had read. This was a time that was really helpful because it was teaching me reading comprehension, while also teaching me how to write with proper grammar for our grade level. This continued all the way to middle school which we would build on top of what we have learned, only getting more difficult books which would strengthen our reading comprehension. I remember the books having their level of difficulty marked as letters and the farther the alphabet letter was the harder the books were. This in a way would give me a sort of encouragement to read more so I could get into those higher levels. At that time having a higher level made me feel cooler among my peers since it always felt like a friendly competition.
In addition, in Middle School I was exposed to different genres of books at different levels such as; Fiction, Non-Fiction, Autobiography and more. This made me even more interested in reading. In order to encourage my class, a new system was implemented in which each book had a certain amount of points that we had to reach by the end of the quarter. This was also a friendly competition where some students wanted to have the most points in the class, but I would just do the required amount of points needed. This experience would connect to Ellen C. Carillo’s Reading and Writing are Not Connected . In the article Carillo goes on to state “… research has shown that students learn to read and write better when they are instructed simultaneously.” Based on this research I would agree with her because learning reading and writing at the same time is an effective and engaging way to learn them both. In addition, reading and writing should go hand in hand given that by learning to read and learn from the authors writing style, it could be able to transfer to ones writing, similar to what I have done when I was first exposed to them.
Having my sister and her friend proofread my work and in the process showing me my mistakes and teaching me as we go through my work was another influence that shaped my academic literacy. At this time I would be in High school where I was now being introduced to new forms of people writing such as success books from various authors , complex novels with language of different time periods, Shakespeare’s play playwrights and a variety of articles. I was now asked more from my teachers when it came to my reading comprehension skills and writing about the text that we have read. That is why when I would do a writing assignment of any kind I would refer to my older sister or her friends to proofread my paper. As she would read she would point out when I had run on sentence, when certain sections were too wordy, or where I was down right wasn’t making sense. By having my sister being able to help me understand my mistakes, explain to me how to fix them, and overall giving me pointers on how to make my writing better, I was able to learn from her how to improve my writing skills. For a long time she has been the person I have gone to for help and because of that I had made a better understanding of my writing and writing style and the mistakes that I have made and how I can fix them. For that I thank her for still till this day she is till proof reading my work and continues in helping me understand my writing and writing style and being able to be the best writing that I can be and continuing to improve upon that.
A teacher named Mark Gonzonsky have taught kids reading and comprehension and believed that students are not caring about the books they read instead its finding and understanding the significance of what they are reading. Based on his experiences he stated “The actual reading of actual words on pages is the challenge, and now I know what to do. It’s simple. Instead of reading only the opening chapters; read excerpts from beginning, middle, and end. I can fill them in on the plot. This is called, in TV shows: “Previously . . . ”. What he is trying to say is that he has made teaching his books easier to comprehend by being able to just sum them up in a beginning middle end format with his use of small excerpts. This would be similar to my experiences in highschool when there would be a reading due and in class as a reference there would be copies of the summary of the reading giving the students who didn’t read some sort of leeway. This in my opinion is not an efficient way to get one’s point across given the fact that they are being handed the answers and are not looking themselves. I understand that reading can be boring at times but it is a helpful skill to learn and how to find the significance of what you are reading by uncovering it yourself. This would lead to students losing their motivation to read and if they lose their motivation in reading then they will most likely lose their motivation in writing as well.
Overall I have learned everyone has had different story when it comes to being introduced to reading and writing for the first time and how every person has a different feeling to it. To me we read to see into the minds of others and we write to express our opinion to those ideas, a cycle that’s constantly happening everyday. I am now in college embarking on the next chapter in my life where I would continue to be exposed to different forms of writing by different authors with everyone having their own unique writing style. I know that they would continue to get harder and harder but would be all worth it in expanding my knowledge in my experience with my academic literacy.

Work Cited
Gozonsky, Mark. “Literacy Narrative: The Man Who Mistook Himself for Alice Munro.” ENTROPY, 8 Aug. 2019, entropymag.org/literacy-narrative-the-man-who-mistook-himself-for-alice-munro/.