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Hunter VanDyke
Professor Rebecca Agosta
UWRT 1101-029
9 October 2015
My Life in Literacy
Literacy, for me, was a long journey filled with, fortunately, more ups than downs. Most
people begin reading and writing at an early age, and luckily, I was among that group of children.
In Deborah Brandts article, Sponsors of Literacy, she introduced the term sponsor, which,
in this case, is someone or something that we feel was influential in our literacy journeys
(Brandt). I did not know it at the time, but that is exactly what my Grandmother was to me. This
article opened my eyes to the realization that I was actually blessed to learn what seems like such
an ordinary thing- reading and writing. Although almost everyone learns how to do both, I was
oblivious to the fact that these two things are based on opportunity. With that being said, here is
my story.
My grandmother was a first-grade teacher from the time before I was born, up until about
six years ago. Seeing that she taught first grade, the prime age for learning how to read and spell,
put words together to form sentences, and so on, she took it upon herself to teach me earlier than
age six. I remember the day pretty clearly for a toddler. I was almost four years old, about eight
months away from starting preschool when my Grandmother stopped by my house one day to
bring me a present. Not knowing it was an educational program, I snatched the small box filled
with discs, the movies, out of her hands and immediately went to put it in my DVD player. She
explained to me that these movies went in the computer and they were going to make me
smart. Of course I agreed, who would not want to watch movies on a computer? She plugged in

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my earphones, told me to sit down, put the disc in the Mac computer tower, and turned on the
program. These educational programs were called Jump Start-Preschool, and they did just that.
I did not know it yet, but I had a literal jump start in reading and writing. Over the course of
those eight months, I would spend as long as my attention span would let me on the computer,
even if it was just for thirty minutes a day. I vividly remember the animated creatures talking me
through small words such as dog, and building up to small sentences about dogs. There were
also small reading quizzes which consisted of remembering small sentences and typing them
out after seeing a few. I was in awe that a rabbit was teaching me how to say and spell words,
and I loved it. When I was not on the computer, I spent my time at her house playing spelling and
alphabet games with her. I remember having to spell out food items as best I could before I could
eat them. Any type of game that she could pre occupy me with that was also bettering my
literacy was acceptable. Small things she did, like this, helped me tremendously and prepared
me for the next stage of my life.
By the time I started kindergarten, I could read small sentences faster than the other
children, and that evolved into me being the only one in my class who could read small books
meant for beginners in first grade. I could not understand why my teacher always called on me to
read words to the class, or spell other childrens names. I thought everyone could spell their own
name and did not know why I had to spell it for them. Little did I know that they were amazed at
the fact that I was ahead of the other children, and they had no idea my Grandmother was the one
to thank.
Every Friday in kindergarten, we would meet with our Reading Buddies, who were
also known as the fifth graders of my school. We would sit in the library in the small bean bags
and they would read us a book of their choosing. One Friday, my buddy decided to read me the

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first chapter of her Harry Potter book. Considering I was reading small picture books at this
point, I could have cared less about what she was saying. However, I was crazily intrigued by the
size of her book. It was huge! I immediately assumed she was a genius to be reading such a large
book that was probably filled with enormous, impossible to pronounce words. I knew that I was
going to read those kinds of books, and even bigger ones one day.
In third grade, I had my chance. The next two years were filled with reading books, such
as Junie B. Jones and Magic Treehouse, and participating in small class spelling bees. I enjoyed
progressively reading bigger books and winning some of our spelling bees. I was still reading
bigger books than most children, and it gave me a sort of drive. I still knew that I had to read
Harry Potter books in order to be the smartest. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Shaw, took us to
the library in hopes of encouraging the other children, who had read Junie B. Jones twenty times
for weekend reading, to branch out. This is when I knew I had to read Harry Potter. I ran along
the wooden bookshelves to the Fiction section and hurriedly tried to find Rowling before
anyone else. I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, and could almost feel myself
getting smarter. The stories and fantasies in those books were so intriguing! Over Christmas
break, I read two more of the books, and had finished the series by February.
Amidst my Harry Potter phase, third grade was also the year that we were introduced to
Reading Counts tests. These tests were small ten question quizzes that tested our
comprehension on a particular book. If we made a fifty or below, we failed the test and had to
take it again in order to receive credit for reading the book. These Harry Potter books not only
provided endless fantasies, but also a certain amount of points. The bigger the book, the more
points we acquired and added onto our Lexile scores. This fascinated me. The fact that I could
enjoy big books such as these, and acquire an insane amount of Reading Counts points, was

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more than exciting. This motivation drove me to read bigger books, and more series, such as
Eragon and Little House on the Prairie, just for the reason that I knew I could obtain the most
Lexile points and be at the top of my class. No one was into the point system quite like I was,
other than a few other of my friends, so for a while I was at the top of my grade, as far as having
the most points.
I believe that if it were not for this motivation, I would not have survived my senior year
AP Literature class. After skimming by with low As in High School honors English classes, I
knew if I wanted to stand out in my college applications, I needed to step up my game because
Harry Potter was not going to cut it anymore. In fact, I had not read for fun since third grade.
Once I grew out of Reading Counts and realized that I was not always going to receive points, all
motivation went out the window. Looking back, this will to win greatly impacts the way I
think about how influential environments actually are on a child. My family so greatly valued
being the best, and although I did not know it at the time, I was feeding off their views. Every
time I brought home a 4, which took place of an A, I got a reward of some kind. I knew that
in order to achieve greatness I had to surpass everyone else, and once that prize for earning the
most points was taken away from me in school, I lost all interest in reading.
So, then came the day I had dreaded since I received my senior year schedule. It was late
January, and also the first day of second semester, I sat in a cold desk chair right by the air
conditioner in a room covered with colorful student projects and perfumed with coffee. I was so
nervous I could hardly stand it. As I looked around I saw half of the top ten of my class and I felt
nauseous. I just knew I was going to fail; however, Ms. Carr walked in with a warm, motherly
smile on her face, and I immediately felt a sense of relief. She then told us to take out a piece of
paper and write about The Kite Runner, an assigned book for the start of class, using three

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literary devices. I had no idea how to even start, but I was sure that I would be fine from that day
on, and I was right. Over the course of the semester, I received rather good grades on
assignments I had never even thought about doing, such as poetry essays and SOAPSTones. Ms.
Carr helped me through so many essays and taught me how to affectively write. For example, we
were assigned a research paper, and mine was to be about Jane Austen and how she used her
novel Pride and Prejudice as a social protest against marriage in the 1800s. The only reason I
picked this topic was because it was the example used on the assignment sheet, and I had no idea
how to even start. After sitting down with Ms. Carr, she helped me plan my essay and even
helped me understand the topic on a deeper level, which earned me a 98 on the essay. Ultimately,
I ended the course with a ninety-five, which was higher than some of my peers who were in the
top ten. I felt ecstatic, and like I could write analytically about anything. Ms. Carr helped me
tremendously during those five months I spent in her class, and I could not thank her enough for
adding onto my list of sponsors who benefitted, and bettered, my literacy.
As you can see, my literacy journey was, thankfully, one that most people would describe
as something filled with endless support and opportunities. If it were not for my Grandmother,
unexpectedly encouraging me to read and write at such an early age, I strongly believe that I
would have never developed the drive and motivation for striving to be the best I could be
literacy wise. Likewise, Ms. Carr, allowed me to openly take on assignments I would have never
thought I could write about no matter how unfamiliar and scary it is, such as this memoir. This
reflection on my literacy journey, and reading articles about others experiences, has opened my
eyes to the importance of sponsors and using literacy as a motivational device.

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Work Cited

Brandt, Deborah. "The Sponsors of Literacy." College Composition and Communications 7.12th
ser. (1997): 1-26. Web. 09 Oct. 2015