Nine questions of reading

            When I was a child my family never read to me, which makes sense because I hate to read.  Today, I do not have any children, but in the future I hope to have children and I won’t read to them either because I hate to read.  When I was in school I barely read a thing.  If I had to do an assignment with a book I would skim it to find the answers.  Most of the time I would just look it up on the internet and see what I can find about the assignment.  In the end I’d always pass and move on to the next assignment. Now since I’ve been in ENG 111, I still don’t like reading, but I have adapted to expanding my vocabulary and work on my writing skills.

            In my experience I have never been taught a single thing about specific reading or even text comprehension strategies.  The books I read are about space, airplanes, sports, comics and other things that interest me.  Like I’ve said I’m not much of a reader, I’m more of a hands on learner.  I have never heard of audiobooks, but it does sound interesting.  My success in middle/high school had nothing to do with reading well, it was all heart and wanting to pass and make it across that big stage. While being in ENG 111, I have learned some text comprehension strategies, but refuse to learn any specific reading strategies due to the fact that I don’t believe I will need it in my life. This class has taught me many strategies to use in my future and some not to use and I’m thankful for it.

            My expectations for success in college do not have anything to do with reading; all it will have to do with is my motivation to succeed. I want to have a future, so I can say that I actually did something with my life.  To my knowledge, other than having to wear glasses, I don’t have any reading difficulties and I hope I never do. ENG 111 has shown me some techniques to use when I was writing my critical thinking journals, essays, or even free writings. These techniques have made me open up more not just as a writer, but as a person and I am happy to use these techniques in my future. Since the start of the semester, I have learned important things about critical and academic reading and hope to learn more in my upcoming years.