If there is one childhood event that I wish to erase completely from my mind is the struggle that I went through to become the proficient reader and writer that I am today. My journey in writing and reading as a child had many ups than down. Nonetheless, since the memories of the event are here to stay, I chose to focus and appreciate the end game and the milestones that I proudly got to realize in the long run. My reading and writing phase would not have been possible were it not for the assisted performance help I got from the schools’ Assisted Performance Councilor.
As a small child, I always admired escorting my elder sister and brother to board the school bus; I fancied the school life as I knew I would land the opportunity not only to realize my academic dreams and future goals as I was always told, but also make new friends and play a lot. At least that is what most children imagine of when they think about school. Little do they know that the academic journey might not be a walk in the park as some of their elders seem to depict. The first few days in school were all smooth; no pressure at all, until it came to a point that we all had to jot down our names. Strangely, all other kids seemed to quickly grasp on what the teacher was saying; they all were impressively not only able to write their names, but also read the alphabetics in their right orderly.
Me, on the other hand, seemed stagnated as I could not keep up the pace with the rest of the students. I always misspelled my name, not to mention that I could not even read the first ten alphabets in an orderly manner. I became the laughing stalk in my class; their stinging laughter echoed in my ears and left my heart shattered into tiny pieces, and that made me dread for the next class session. The teacher could not understand me, and my wild guess was that she thought I was faking it, or rather trying to be a nag. She always circled my work errors with her red pen and sternly told me “fix it”. I started feigning sickness every morning to avoid going to school since I was not ready for another traumatic experience. Mingling with my friends became my worst nightmare since they kept teasing me about my stammering during class reading sessions, not forgetting that they even told of my predicaments to other students from other classes. With such negativity and bullying from my peers, there was no way my environment could be productive; thus, I became distanced, angry, and a bitter child who seemed to see negativity in every situation.
One day I gathered courage and told of my predicaments to my dad. As understanding as he is, he decided to accompany me to school where he had a lengthy chat with my English teacher. Later on, the teacher called me after the class, took me to an Assistance Performance Councilor. Through frequent and thorough interactive sessions with the counselor, he was able to identify my problem; lack of confidence and slow learning. Slowly by slowly and step after another, he taught me on how to master the relationship between spoken and print words, between sounds and letters, and read simple words with phonically regular and high-frequency words. With every session grew my confidence which amounted to new levels daily, and I could then not only use but also apply insights and skills to sound out unfamiliar words.
As time went by, my teacher became impressed with the progress I had achieved since I turned out to be the best reader in my class. At times, she could even request me to lend help to my fellow students who had difficulties navigating through reading and writing. Back at home, everyone was aware of what I was undergoing and thus were more than willing to help me out. My siblings shared what had worked for them while at that stage, while my parents encouraged independent reading by selectively buying books with few words per page, with illustrations and large type-size. To ensure ample time and opportunity to apply strategies and practices learned, I would read stories while my family sat around to listen and correct me where I went wrong. I have never been proud of my self like then. Funny how I became confident so much that I would lag behind in malls and stores trying to read and spell the words on various commodity packages.
Being a victim of slow learning and writing, I usually try to understand the learning predicaments of those around me by recalling that were it not for the help and understanding I received, then I could not be where I am today. It is upon all parents, and more so teachers, to be patient with all students right from the tender age since that is the phase where not only is the foundation of the child laid in learning, but also where they gather the motivation to pursue the next learning level. We all, nonetheless, should always be ready to help those in need.
