My Story
Leonard, Rod

>>ROD: My name is Rod Leonard and I'm from the Red Mountain Writing Project at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, Alabama. How I've come to love reading was I had struggled with reading as a child; I was in chapter one reading which was like an individual program and I was pulled out of class for assistance with my reading. My mother had me retained in the first grade so I was dealing with a lot of things, I didn't like reading, I didn't like the fact that I was a grade behind. At the end of the day when I look back on it, it has made me who I am today as far as reading and my love for it. I currently teach seventh grade reading and language arts and I think my home influence, my mother really stressed the importance of knowing how to read so that not only could you succeed academically but it's just in order for life that you know how to read. I really value that and I try to convey that to my students that it's very important to know how to read and it's not the pace that you read but that at the end of the day you comprehend it and you've had a conversation during the reading that develops more comprehension and it makes you want to read more things and just develop an overall love for reading. So that's my story about reading.