Transcripts of: How I Learned to Read

Interviewer: Hello, would you like to introduce yourself and then you can go into your literacy narrative. Interviewee: Okay, my name is Courtney Lennix, I'm a sophomore at Ohio State, and my literacy narrative is: I started reading around like 4 years of age. And my mom would read me books, a bunch of different ones and she mostly read me Dr. Seuss books. And, um, basically every night or anytime she could, she would just read me them. And then she would ask me to read them back to her, like right after she read them. I could do it really well; I had no problem with it. But then, if she didn't read to me for a few days, I would be like, Mom, can I read this book, or whatever, can you read this to me? And she would be like okay, well why don't you read to me. And I always had a little trouble with it, like I didn't know some of the words, but there were certain words I knew. And then, so from that, she kind of realized that I, um, like, read by memorizing the words because all of the Dr. Seuss books follow a certain pattern, or they have a rhyme scheme. So then she kind of knew that and that's how I learned to read, when I was in preschool. Then once I got into like kindergarten and first grade, I, she said, my mom told me that I actually started sounding out words and reading from there. So like reading by memorizing helped me to establish like certain basic words that I knew, and then words that I didn't know I would sound out. And my brother is six years younger than me, so when we started to read, he was around the same age, like four, and I was ten, so I could already read pretty well. I was in fourth grade, so I had a pretty good understanding of like words and sounds, and I could read books and stuff. So I spent my time reading to him as well. And like me and my mom would both read to him. I don't know, it just kind of took off from there. Interviewer: Do you have one book in particular that you remember you liked reading the best? Interviewee: I think I read "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" a lot. Interviewer: Do you know if there particular reason why you liked it? Interviewee: I don't think so, I just think I liked any Dr. Seuss books because they rhymed and the patterns. I just liked the pictures and stuff. Interviewer: Okay, is there anything else you think you would want to share? Interviewee: Um, no I think that's all. Interviewer: Alright, Thank you!