Essay About Reading and Its Important Role

Why do we read? Why do we learn to read and write? Why do we want to read and write? Lacking adequate knowledge in composing and reading, English is my most dreaded subject. Other than magazines, I can't remember understanding anything since War and Peace which was an instructor allocated book in my tenth grade school year. Not that I read a considerable measure before that, I don't recall reading many books much after that. Consequently, with this written work task, my mind feels like an old corroded motor of a ´69 BMW preparing to compete in the race of a lifetime against the newest models. My earliest account of reading is when I was about six years old. My idea of reading changed throughout middle school, and then again within the last four years.

Upon writing I coward in fear. I believe that my relationship towards reading and writing derived from kindergarten. Sitting on the rainbow alphabet covered rug in a classroom filled with twenty other students, I listened to Mrs. Prewer read. I listened to the way her eyes transformed letters on a page into expressive actions. She asked us, ¨Who wants to read next?¨, my hand shot up into the air. I cupped the book into my small hands and began to glide my eyes along the page. ¨T-th -e S-now-y D-da-y¨ I read while sounding out each word. Over time I learned how to make the words on the page come to life. Learning to read with expression and emotion by raising my voice reading certain words such as ¨Now!” or softening my voice reading words like ¨sweetheart¨. I remember coming into Mrs. Prewer´s class every Friday afternoon, creating a movie with words. ¨What day is it mommy?¨ I´d ask my mom so eager to sit on the alphabet rug and glide my eyes along the snowy printed pages. Reading was the key to unlocking the magical door to experience the fascination of words in Wonderland.

Entering high school was overwhelming. I enrolled in an English course with much excitement, yearning to know what movie I could put on using words on a page. In this class, I was taught how to use vivid imagery in writing and how to complete an analysis of another work. I learned that to read is for knowledge only; Once, we had to write a rhetorical analysis paper. The paper was 2500 words of my blood, sweat, and tears. Rhetorical terms such as anadiplosis and anaphora became engraved into my memory. I´d fallen out of love with reading and writing just as quickly as I learned how to.

At a young age, I was instilled with the dire need to be highly educated and although I was unable to experience a fun and adventurous childhood like many other children, I am grateful for being raised with a greater knowledge and wisdom than that ingrained in many. When I am reading, I can visualize the text in any way that I see fit almost as if I am rewriting the novel using the illusions that I feel express the words in a passage. For example, in the current independent novel I am reading, it portrays a child who is an orphan who seeks great expectations within his life. I visualize the child as an innocent, naive child looking for a sign to guide him to light and experience.

Despite how I felt then and now, today when I read and write I ignore the words I was told in AP Language and instead read with the rainbow alphabet rug in mind. I read to give words on a page a heartbeat and I write with valor in comfort. My kindergarten experience and high school English experience has shown me that we all have different motives to read. The myriad of motives we have behind reading and writing expresses a beautiful concept-- Individuality.