How I learned to read... an essay.

"Learning To Read."
An essay by Natalie Higley.
How do you remember learning to read? My memory's are probably quite different then your's are. In my the following paragraphs, I will give you my personal experiences of learning to read. In researching for my essay, I found that sometimes, if you pause and really think about things you will remember things that are long forgotten. So here is my essay, "Learning To Read."

What I remember about learning to read, briefly, Is flashes of myself at my Aunt Debra's, reading DR. Seuss books, and drinking Peppermint tea. I remember my Aunt reading to me in voices corresponding to the personality of each character. I remember sitting in front of the fireplace with a blanket wrapped around us and books stacked high all around me. The book I remember most is Dr. Seuss's " Hooray For Defender Day!".

Upon further consideration along with much thought and prompting, I remembered quite a bit more about learning to read such as...the reason I was at my Aunt Debra's house was because I had pneumonia, and all I could eat was Ice chips and my Mother and I didn't have an Ice maker but my Aunt did. The reason I was drinking tea was to loosen my throat muscles so i could practice reading. The reason I was in front of a fire with a blanket around me was because I was so cold I was shaking.

Honestly, I remembered that learning to read was not such a good experience for me! My Aunt forced me to say each word she said right after her, and to pronounce it by sounding it out.(Now I greatly thank her for being so hard on me. If not for her, I would probably hate to read!) At first I would memorize what the words looked like along with how they sounded, then when moving on to other books I could read words similar to those that I had memorized! My own plan had in essence backfired on me, so that I had to learn.

The book I first read by myself was " Hooray for Diffendoofer day!" by Dr. Seuss. I liked this book because the pictures in side of it appeared to have been drawn on a different piece of paper and the cut and pasted into the book. The story itself was about a school that teaches the strangest things, why camels have humps,why hippos don't fly, and the children complain they will never need to know that stuff. Then one day a test has to be taken at the school and whoever fails has to go to a horrible, boring gray school. The children pass because they paid attention to all of the things they thought they would never need to know. Altogether it is still my favorite children's book.