A moment in my life where my understanding of literacy, language, and communication changed was when I first attended 1st grade. I was timid and quiet. When you’re silent, you do not tend to share your thoughts from one to another. Sharing thoughts can make your mind open onto different perspectives rather than just your own. This was due to the fact that I had an unwell relationship with everyone at home. This resulted in me not understanding much about speaking or understanding any sort of literacy. The only decent communication I had was with the people I surround myself with at school and my teachers. Communicating with them made me think more into what I had in mind and what I have to say. I feel like this helps with our language and literacy rather than being silent. 

Around kindergarten to 1st grade, many kids in that grade had very few to no knowledge of reading and writing. As for me, I had none except for knowing how to write letters. As time went by, I felt very insecure due to my lack of knowledge because my peers would soon know how to write full words and even sentences at the time. I struggled with spelling bees because some words have silent vowels. I felt left behind but didn’t ask for help due to my timidness and anxiety. I was afraid that I would look unintelligent and a failure or disappoint my teachers. However, I did have quite a few friends that corrected me every time they saw a mistake on my work. I would feel comfortable with them rather than the teacher. I had major anxiety thinking the teacher would yell if she knew how much I struggled. I thought to myself, “as long as my friends are here for me, things should be just fine and i can slowly catch up like this.”

However this didn’t last long. One day, our teacher handed us out assessments and when you have tests, you’re basically on your own for that. So I tried my best using the knowledge grasped along with what we learnt in class and my friend’s criticisms. I was pretty confident in what I was doing but at the same time I doubted myself. When we got our tests back, my teacher left a note on my paper stating, “ See me after class so we can discuss how to boost your skills!”. I wasn’t surprised at this point. However, I was very nervous and embarrassed. I felt like I was just a failure and that the world was coming to an end. I feel as if the truth is coming and that she will yell at me for being slow. I showed my friend the note and she told me everything will be just fine. I stayed silent throughout the rest of the class hours and waited for school to be over so I could speak to my teacher about how to boost my skills. I somehow knew this day would come when I had to confront my teachers about what I understood and what I didn’t.

It was around 3:00pm and this is when school was over. I then developed a huge stomach cramp  because I just wanted to go home. I packed my belongings and headed over to her desk. I saw a few other students who also headed over to her desk as if they were in the same situation as me. Turns out they were also struggling. She then was very patient with us and had a 1 on 1 conference with each of us. She asked me if anything was personally bothering me. I said “no, I am just very slow”. She told me it was okay but wished I would’ve told her sooner because then, she would’ve done something quicker. She apologizes for not noticing as well because she rarely gives out tests. This was the only way she knew who was struggling and who wasn’t. She handed us a practice with simple directions on literacy and language that was meant for kids who were struggling. I went home and studied the practice and everyday I would gain more and more knowledge. She would also come over to me and check what I was doing during class to see if I’m on track. I soon gained a close connection to my teacher, because it turns out that she wasn’t as mean as I thought. I assumed she was obnoxious due to me being