Engaged Reading Activity

    My experience in reading started off at a young age. Aural reading was the way I started to learn to read with Sesame Street, with many of there various reading exercises including the “Letter Of The Day”, and many other activities they would do for children around my age or even older. The show had a good combination of appeal to the audience, structure of the show, the layout of the show and also the“flash-iness” to keep the audience attentive, even if you “tuned” in when the show is half-way through you could understand what they were doing and it'd still catch your eye.

    Through this show my interest of reading was sparked, I urged to read so eventually I started to learn. At first it would be very frustrating reading, taking so long to get through a story book. I would struggle until I persevered, I can remember the excitement of reading that first book “ The Cat and the Hat”, this feeling made me want to read even more and eventually I read a lot of the works of Dr.Seuss,Franklin, and Curious George.

    Eventually after those “small” books I made my way to Novels like Goosebumps. These were a bit of a challenge at first due to bigger words, no pictures on the page, the number of pages, and the amount of words on each page. But through perseverance I made it through them with very little problems and became a better visual reader because of these books.

   Then by the time Grade 5 came around we had a sheet to fill out each day for at least an hour of reading each night after school. This eventually discouraged me from reading for the first time in my life I felt I had to read not because I wanted to but because, I was being made to for marks, this is where my reading started going downhill. Each day I read less and less, I didn't want to read, all the extravagant adventures became boring and dull, I then started to hate reading, my hatred growing towards it, making it feel like a chore rather then a pleasure.

    My interest in reading then virtually became extinct, like a fire burning out, but upon the fire for reading going out there was a spark left that one day may re-light the fire for reading. After about 3 years of not liking to  read I was asked if I read the “Lord Of the Rings” series by a friend of course I said yes even though I hadn’t read it. Then I spent the next couple of weeks reading it so I could talk about it to my friend and of course I loved the series could picture every single detail it was amazing, the journey, battles, adventures, also the amazing plot, and this sparked the fire for my reading that had once gone out.

    As the fire was re-lit I began to read more and more series and books people recommended like “Harry Potter” , “House of Chains” series, “The Da vinci Code” and many more. Than I began to read more in school and it wasn’t to bad I actually liked some of the books like “Animal farm”, “Great expectations”, “Merchant of Venice” and some others.

    Another place I use my “reading ability” is at work. I am currently employed at Zehrs Niagara, working there for just over two years now. I use my visual reading to read labels for products, making sure they are put within’ the right place. To order products I have to make sure I have ordered the right product and case, building displays I have to make sure I put the right product on the display according to the “plan” that comes and according to how much product we have or listening to my boss to find out what has to be done and jotting it down.

    Now currently I am reading Biology 12 University, Chemistry 12 University and the “Twilight”series which my girlfriend had recommended to me. Biology and Chemistry books both greatly interest me because it is knowledge about the world and matter which I don’t know. The “Twilight” series on the other hand is decent, it’s not the best series out there but, it is also not the worst, it vividly describes the characters, but has a rather simple plot line, not a whole lot of mental process is required to understand what is going on or secret messages for later.

    Clearly reading is and has been a big part of my life. Everyday I use both Aural and Visual reading from listening to music and singing along to the lyrics, to reading texts on my phone to reading at school to listening to my boss talk at work and jotting down things that need to be done. Everywhere in modern day life requires Aural or Visual reading.