My Reading Habits

Edwin Vega

Mr. Ken Carpenter

MMC

September 11, 2011

My Reading Habits

            Throughout my life, I always detested reading with a great passion. As a kid, my mom would always force me to read because my elementary teachers required that of me. I assume that is why I hated reading so much, because I strongly dislike when other individuals tell me what to do in a demanding way. I was a decent reader growing up; however, I could only read Spanish being that I was raised in the island of Puerto Rico. Spanish is my first language; all my elementary school years were spent in the island. Even though teachers in Puerto Rico teach a little bit of English due to the fact that it is part of the Unites States, I never learned how to write, read, or speak it, I only understood a couple of words because the English teaching system in my country is pretty awful.

            When I finished elementary school I came to the United States (2003), I had to start middle school and I had the tendency of hating to read, I did not know English at all and was completely new to a fresh country, and I had multiple factors that could potentially make me unsuccessful through my middle school years. My mother became really strict when it came to reading even more now because my school required twenty minutes of reading everyday, she knew that it would help me learn English, and I had the FCAT test coming as well and knew that if I didn’t pass it I had the risk of failing the grade. In view of the fact that I had to read regardless, I started reading everything just to read and not paid attention to what I was reading, so if someone asked me a question about the story I read, I did not know the answer because I never tried to understand the stories that I was reading. Moreover, my mom took me out of public school and put me in a private one because she feared that my reading skills would never assist me on passing the FCAT and private schools do not have FCAT tests; Therefore, I passed middle school without a problem.

            Then came High School, at this time I already knew how to speak English very well and my reading and writing were respectable. I had a mean English teacher that made us write essays in the class and out of class almost everyday, she also made us read the novel “Native Son” consistently, at first I hated the teacher, but now I thank God that he put her in my path because my English teacher named Mrs. Rigsby was the individual who unleashed the journalism potential I had in me. I fell in love with writing to the fullest; however, reading not so much, but I never had a problem with reading again, if I have to read something I can do it with no problem though is not something I enjoy as much as writing.

            Nevertheless, being that my reading habits have gone through pure dreadful stages, I can proudly say that they have changed over the past months for the better. I feel very comfortable with my reading habits now because I have performed well in all my English classes at Valencia College and my major now is communications. My personal challenge now is that I want to read consistently the W.S.J for the class, and after the class continue to read it because I know it will enrich my life in multiple positive ways.