Abby Markert

One literacy event in my life that stands out to me occurred in the 6^th grade. In the 6^th grade I was living in Sydney, Australia. I was making adjustments with this move, although not my first move, so there were some challenges I was overcoming. School was starting to become more challenging as the workload increased. I noticed that more assignments were requiring more reading and it was harder for me to maintain high grades. I have never been a strong reader or ever really enjoyed reading for fun. My mom became aware of this and noticed that I was struggling in school because of it. My mom than took me to a special reading center where they did all sorts of testing on my to see if I had any learning disabilities. I remember going to this center and going through a series of tests and had high anxiety. I remember feeling like I wasn’t doing a good job on the tests and it was hard for me to articulate what aspects I was struggling with. It turns out I am slightly dyslexic. My mom and my younger sister are both dyslexic as well and that is one of the reasons I was tested. Growing up it was always a challenge for me to read and enjoy reading because it did not come easy to me. As a result I always had a sour taste about literacy. It was something that I knew I was going to have to overcome and really practice at. It took awhile for me to learn the tricks that worked best for me, and also a lot of practice. However, I am about to receive a specialization in language arts, which is something I would have never thought. I had to work really hard to get where I am today. I learned new strategies to reading and constantly need to work harder at it than most people. But I am now a much stronger reader and enjoy reading so I am thankful to those teachers that were able to help me get to where I am today. When I become a teacher I want to make sure I pay close attention to those students who struggle with reading and give them the tools they need to improve. Literacy is one of the most important components to school and I want to make sure that each student feels strongly about it.