One Word at a Time From as early on in my childhood as I can remember, I have been fascinated by words. This interest was encouraged primarily by my family and was developed through different mediums. Without the personal experiences I had with words growing up, the course of my life would have indeed been set on a different trajectory.
Like the average baby, my first word was as simple as it gets- "Ma-ma". When I was learning the alphabet and numbers, my mom would put on popular children's shows of the time, including "Sesame Street" and "Clifford the Big Red Dog", on television and tape them in the car. She preferred for me to watch shows that were both educational and fun. I also enjoyed sing-along songs that reinforced my learning. If we listened to a tape enough times, she would actually start to sing along as well! When I was able to start putting short phrases and sentences together, my parents always made it a point to correct my grammar immediately. If I said, "Dad, we should have eaten at Mcdonald's," he replied, "Eaten," in a simple yet effective reminder. Just as they currently encourage me to take on any challenging opportunity, my parents always took the opportunity to challenge me as a child. To help broaden my vocabulary and speech skills, they tried not to simplify everything so they used "baby" words as rarely as possible. When I would point out something that I wanted but I didn't know how to properly phrase it, they waited until I provided the appropriate "grown-up" word. For example, "bottle" vs. "ba-ba." One of my fondest childhood memories is when the whole family came together and we would play a game where each person took a turn writing a word that started with the first letter of the alphabet until someone (usually me) couldn't think of another word, then they would move on to the next letter, and so on. Though this game helped expand my vocabulary, it has a deeper meaning to me today because of how special that family time was, since we rarely get to spend quality time together now.
I began reading on my own at the age of four. While previously, my parents and other family members would sit and read to me, it was not long before I was reading to them because I learned quickly. In addition, I fell in love with the library at a young age. I begged my mom to take me almost every other day so that I could check out new books. In fact, I read so much that it often got me in trouble because I would bring books to the dinner table and read instead of participating in the conversation. In the second grade, I discovered the joy of reading books in a series. I read The Magic Tree House in second grade, Junie B. Jones in third grade, A Series of Unfortunate Events in fourth grade, and The Hardy Boys in fifth grade. Once I got going with the first book, it was very difficult to get me to stop reading. I often stayed up late, far past my bedtime, hiding under the covers with a flashlight because I couldn't bear to fall asl...
