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Anonymous

SPEAKER: Alright Ms. Ragland, thank you for taking the time to record your digital literacy narrative and I'll just ask a couple of questions. Where were you born?

RAGLAND: I was born in Newark, Ohio.

SPEAKER: Oh that's not too far from Columbus. What brought you here to Columbus?

RAGLAND: I came to Columbus for college. I went to Otterbein College in Westerville.

SPEAKER: And what would you like to share with us today about literacy and what it means to you?

RAGLAND: What literacy means to me is being able to read and comprehend what you're reading and what someone is saying to you. It is important for everyday living today because you need to be able to communicate with other people and your culture and your neighborhood, wherever you just need to be able to communicate and be able to read. 

SPEAKER: Are there any stories from your childhood or things you remember learning to read at an early age?

RAGLAND: Yes, I would definitely say that at a young age, my mother, she used to read the Bible to us and she even got us our own first Bible for us to read when we were younger and she also used to read Dr. Sues books to us and the Highlight books and she used to get us involved in programs at church, we used to go to bible study, so a lot of story times took place at church, at home and even during library time, she used to take us to the library all the time. I know that when I was younger I received my first library card I'd probably say around the age of six, and I used to get about twenty books and my mom, she would make us read all of them within like a week or two. So literacy played an important role in my life as a young child, as a young girl. Even as I got older, my mom, she used to make us read the encyclopedias which was actually kind of fun for me, in a way, because you just got to learn different types of words and what things meant and even after reading the encyclopedias I began to read medical books so I became very fond of the medical industry. 

SPEAKER: I see your mother played an important role in you becoming literate as a child, are you a mother to a child right now?

RAGLAND: Yes I am, I have a three year old son.

SPEAKER: And how do you see literacy playing, what role do you see literacy playing in your family today?

RAGLAND: Literacy is playing an important role in our family today. I'm at home and I get to teach our son how to read and write. We go to the library, we go to story time, he gets to be around other kids so he gets that interaction with other kids his age so he gets that comprehension and understand them and other adults that are - and also we just read books to him at night time, we read the newspaper and the Bible, so he just gets different types of articles and just material that he can learn to enhance his literacy.

SPEAKER: Is there anything else you'd like to share about literacy and what it means to you?

RAGLAND: Um, no, I think that's it.

SPEAKER: Alright, thank you.

RAGLAND: Thanks.