MARCUS' FIQWS BOOK: My Journey As A Writer In FIQWS Psychology Of Social Media

Sticky Notes, a Sharpie, and an Easel

     In a small and compact home located in Staten Island, I learned to read with the simple tools of sticky notes. Well it was not only the sticky notes that helped me, it was also a sharpie, the objects around my house and an easel that helped assist alongside the sticky notes. Who would of thought that these trivial items that were set forth would help a young boy learn to read. Definitely not me at first. I was five years old at the time and was going to be entering kindergarten. As a student in the kindergarten class in my school, there was an expectation set to have an idea on how to read. Being only five years old you weren’t expected to know complex words but to know at least objects that you encounter every day and what were known as sight words. Even though in the kindergarten class I was going to be taught how to read, it was highly expected that the students knew how to read those simple words so that we could build sentences and make the teaching process easier. At the time, I did not know how to fully read and needed to be taught immediately. My mother was determined to get me to learn to read. Her approach was extremely intelligible and was easily set up to allow me to learn to read.

     It all started when I came home from being watched by my grandmother I would encounter sticky notes being placed around the whole house on different objects. Everywhere I would turn the objects names were written on the sticky notes. When I asked my mom what the small but colorful sticky squares were for she had told me I was going to learn to read the objects names to eventually be able to build sentences. In general, I knew what each object was however I never seen their names actually written out. I remember she had placed a sticky note on the refrigerator for that was one of the words that I was going to practice learning to read. I would sound out the word until I was actually able to read that it said refrigerator. I would point out each letter as its sound was said. Reading the objects names came easy to me.  As mentioned I knew what the object were before seeing its name written out and I could read it when the sticky note was on the object, however once my mom took the sticky note off the object it became a different story. I had to practice more before I could actually master reading the names of the objects without having the sticky notes on them. I had to try to sound out the word by going letter by letter to build the word or to even use my memory of the word and connect it with the image of the object in my head. For weeks, I had walked around the house reading the labels on each and every object by slowly sounding out the letters. To increase the intensity and to make sure that I wasn’t just saying the objects that I saw, my mom finally bought me an easel to write the names of the objects on. Here I had incorporated having to memorize how to spell the word and having to read it back to make sure it was correct. Without the sticky notes on the objects it was indeed harder for me because I had to actual read, write, and couldn’t just use my general knowledge. I was able to master writing down every object correctly and was able to read each and every one. Once I had the objects around my home down pact, my mom had moved on to sight words. The sight words consisted off words such as ‘The’, ‘And’, ‘What’, etc. I would go for hours a day sounding out the sight words that were written on the sticky notes and the easel. As I had mastered all of the sight words I had finally moved on to writing simple sentences. These simple sentences consisted of the objects that were around my house and the sight words. I combined both of the sets of words to build sentences. With this practice, I became prepared for the upcoming kindergarten class. I was well prepared and now knew what words, sentences, and even paragraphs were. This had caused me to want to read more and even lead to me building a love for reading.

     As I grew older I used my ability to read to my advantage and continued to have an enjoyment for reading. My mother and I would read the series: The Magic Treehouse, Junie B Jones, and A-Z Mysteries to each other to now help build up my comprehension skills and further me to reading bigger sentences with more complexed words. I built a relationship with books and learned to love them. I had set a goal of reading at least one book a day and would easily obtain the goal leading me to have to take multiple trips to my public library. I truly enjoyed reading and would anticipate coming home from school to read on my spare time. As time progressed to junior high school I had gained access to technology and social media. With a phone, I could read on demand on my spare time that I had. I would download comic books and even thriller stories to my phone to read. In addition, with the social media platform of twitter, I was reading what was happening throughout the world and what was going on with the latest celebrity.

     No matter the social status, IQ level or age, the individual is constantly learning to correctly read and write. To this day I am still learning to read. I come across jargon and new slang that I have never seen before. I still follow the steps that I used as a child to learn to read however without the sticky notes. I now use an electronic rectangle with bright and colorful pixels as my learning tool. It is in my pocket twenty-four seven and I can look up a words definition and pronunciation whenever, wherever. Who would of thought that a small rectangular device could help a young adult learn to read.
            
 

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