Mark Stevenson

UWRT 1101-074
9/8/2014
Literacy Narrative Draft 1

What is Literacy?
To me literacy means the ability to read and write but this can mean different
things to different people. It would also vary by what language you are brought up
with to speak. My personal definition of literacy is the ability to read and write,
meaning that a person can read and write their language efficiently, also with this I
include the ability to do basic math and understand numbers. I have come to my
personal definition of literacy by learning in these areas of literacy throughout my
years of schooling.
The first step to learning literacy and understanding it would be to speak it.
At the age of about seven months I was babbling the words momma and dada.
This was the beginning of learning how to speak which would develop into writing
and so forth. My first sentences came around 14-15 months old and of course at this
age they werent really full sentences, but this is what my mom likes to tell me.
Learning at a young age was thanks to my family members, especially my
mother. Every night she would read me a book, my favorite was How Many Trucks
Can a Tow Truck Tow by Charlotte Pomerantz, after reading to me my mother would
quiz me on what we read. Nothing ridiculously hard just easy questions about the
reading to make sure I understood the book, this quizzing that my mom would do
would engage me in the reading. With not being able to sit down and read on my
own this was a way that I could develop reading skills and develop vocabulary.

Mark Stevenson
UWRT 1101-074
9/8/2014
Literacy Narrative Draft 1
By first grade I was able to read simple books with about one hundred
common words, nothing with chapters yet still picture books. At this point my
sponsors change to include my teachers and my family at home. It wasnt until about
third grade when I was reading The Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne.
These books were the first chapter-based books that I could remember reading on
my own and more would follow as I continued through school. From about third
grade on I was reading for school assignments and using books to study with for
school. By this time period I was able to comprehend what I was reading and even
take in school quizzes called AR Reading Quizzes. Doing better on these AR Reading
Quizzes gave me points to use at the school store, this gave me motivation to do
more reading and take my time with to understand it. Through high school and
middle school there would be textbook reading and chapter book readings, all really
boring to me personally, but they had underlying meaning to teach how to read and
develop ideas from the readings. Often after completing one of the readings for class
there would be a quiz or a paper to write summarizing the reading to ensure that we
were actually reading.
This all ties into the definition of literacy by being able to read and write, if
someone is able to read they should certainly be able to write that language as well.
Learning to writ for me was mostly thanks to my father, I can remember the days of
him stressing to me the detail that goes into each letter of writing out a word. My
father being very detail oriented had a specific way to hold the pencil, write each
letter, and spacing between the letters. Not so detailed that there was a ruler

Mark Stevenson
UWRT 1101-074
9/8/2014
Literacy Narrative Draft 1
involved but he had and still to this day has a poster of how to write each letter and
the strokes that should be made to create that letter. Although before my father was
using this poster to teach me the importance of writing I was doodling letters or so
called letters. They would look like basic letters but not very legible and most of the
time if not all of the time words would be spelled wrong. Along with writing letters
being taught how to spell is a major part of literacy.
I can remember kindergarten is where my writing skills were further
developed learning the alphabet and numbers. With my fathers prior help with the
writing poster and my kindergarten teacher at school writing for me became quite
easy. Throughout the years my writing improved and I can remember in the third
grade there was a writing test as well as learning how to write in cursive. Learning
cursive was a complete new challenge for me. Still to this day my cursive is slightly
made up and very sloppy. Middle school writing wasnt much different besides
learning to fully write papers with greater detail including using and learning types
of sentences. The types of wirings that I would be researched based or reading
based. Middle school is also when I first used a computer to type my papers. High
school writing was pretty much the same as middle school but with a significant
more amount of detail and longer writings.
The last part of the definition to what I consider literacy is math; being able
to do math is very important to almost every job. Learning to do math and numbers
started for me in about kindergarten. Of course my parents taught me how to count
before kindergarten but it wasnt as in depth that kindergarten went into. As I went

Mark Stevenson
UWRT 1101-074
9/8/2014
Literacy Narrative Draft 1
through elementary school I learned the basic math skills that would be used
throughout all math classes, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, and so forth.
Middle school is when I got into more complex math, with the use of variables and
other more difficult math. But it wasnt until high school that I discovered how much
I really enjoyed math. The detail that had to go into math to get the correct answer
and that there could only be one correct answer for that specific problem made me
enjoy doing high school math. That is why I got all the way up into AP statistics in
high school; high school has had the most difficult math that I have done.
Through all of my time in school I was very social with all of my teachers,
they were my biggest sponsors through learning literacy and becoming literate.
High school was where I became closest with my teachers, especially my math
teachers including Mr. Harden, Mr. Griffen, and Ms. Voorhees because of how much I
enjoyed their classes. But it wasnt just my math teachers that shaped my literacy; it
was all the teachers from preschool all the way to senior year in high school, I am so
thankful to all of them to support me along my path of education. My teachers were
not the only ones supporting me though; my parents, mother, father, and brother
were there for me through everything and were always by my side. Being literate to
me means being able to write and speak the English language, also being able to
develop these things has taken years of hard work, and every day I continue to
improve upon it.