Clutter

Jennifer Rice
Reading was always a hobby I enjoyed. Once I was tested on my reading in school I started to struggle. In the essay “How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading”, Holt gave me a better understanding as to why I struggled. Throughout my childhood I always knew I had a passion for what magic a book can bring you. Once I entered grade school I did not quite understand why reading became so difficult. Then I got to high school and I had almost given it up completely.
When I was just a toddler my mother would read me a story every night before I went to sleep. Sometimes I would even count down the minutes until it was bedtime just to hear a new story. I just could not stop thinking about how great it would be once I could read the book all by myself. Hearing all the stories my mother would tell just made my imagination go wild. Between the crazy world of Dr. Seuss to simply The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I worked so hard to learn how to read. What I did not know was how much of a disappointment it came to be.
In grade school I had always felt like I was a better reader than the other students, reading aloud that is. When it came to testing that’s when it became more difficult. I started failing tests. It was impossible to memorize all the vocabulary. I knew deep down that I could read but I could not understand why they said I was wrong. From grade to grade, I began to just read and read to try and better my skills and vocabulary. The test scores were still not showing it.
High school did not get much better, just a little harder. I thought maybe now that I was older and had more knowledge things would get a little easier. I was even assigned a book I really enjoyed and would read during my free time. I tested better than I have in the past but struggled on some of the test questions. They seemed so specific and hard to understand. I was confused at how I could summarize a novel in its entirety at a sufficient level but could not get specific... [continues]

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