My Literacy Journey

I learned to read in Primary 1, my first year of school. I was 5 years old when I began P1, and went to an all-girls school at home in Bermuda. My teacher’s name was Ms Fisher. Ms Fisher taught me and 17 other 5 year old girls how to read. We were on a curriculum in which we progressed along a series of books that varied in colors. Books in the white group were the shortest and simplest, then pink books, then red books, then orange books, and so on, until you got to black books at the end of P2.

Each group of books had a set of characters that it’s plot centered around. When I began reading the white books, I read stories of cat and dog and hare who sat or ran or ate, until the end of P2 when I read the multi-chaptered black books titled “My Father’s Dragon,” which was about a boy named Peter and the magical misadventures he found himself in with his father’s childhood (imaginary) pet dragon.

I took to reading as soon as I began learning how to do so. Like so many other pupils, I loved the sense of connectedness with the world I experienced when I realized that people could communicate through signs and posters and projections.

My mother was my primary literacy sponsor. Our favorite thing to do together was read. As soon as I began to read, we would alternate who would read aloud each page. I can still remember some of my favorite books we read together when I was very young.

One day a few years ago, when my mother and I were cleaning out an old closet, we actually found an Ant and Bee book and decided to search it on the internet. It turns out, the book that we have is some sort of rare collectible and is worth hundreds of dollars! We didn’t sell it though.

I also loved writing from a very young age. For my 5th birthday, my parents found a company that allowed you to send in your own story and illustrations, and they send back a hard cover, legitimate book of it. You could also include an author’s note, photo, and dedicate the book to someone. It is still one of my favorite gifts I have ever received. The book was titled “Read Away” and was about two girls who loved to read and went on some nonsensical adventure involving books. It was fairly incoherent, but it is the first instance I can remember of writing for expression, and of being proud of something I had written.