My Personal Path to Literacy

I would sit beside my mom, or on her lap, she would point out words to see if I could remember and recognize them. First, it was "ma", "me", "mi", "mo", and "mu". I would also follow her finger as she read. I first picked up, more words, then how to sound them out. I was reading on my own before I entered kindergarten.

I began writing a story while I was in second grade. Actually, it was a story I invented about Hello Kitty. When my mom read it, she strongly encouraged me to continue what I was doing.

Even though we weren’t rich, my house always had so many books to read and enjoy. I remember my mom reading not a few “self improvement” books. Therefore reading for me was presented as “Demonstration Road Literacy” which I understood and assumed as a hobby.

Back in those times, the public schools in Mexico were not bilingual as today’s schools. Due to this fact, my education during first, second and 3rd grade was completely in Spanish. But for fourth grade, I was moved to a private elementary school. With this situation at the age of 8 years, I was exposed to a completely new language for me. Allow me to emphasize the word “New Language” because before this age I have never even heard someone speak in English. Nowadays kids who are born and raised in the valley, sometimes speak Spanish as a mother language. Even in this situation, they are exposed to the English language in different ways. In my case, I didn’t even know the English language existed.

My very first day at school, the English teacher placed a test to know what was the proficiency level of each student. Of course, my classmates who were in the same college since 1st grade were familiar with the program for 3 complete years. I have no clue why my grade for that test was a 1 instead of a 0. Being in a public school for my first 3 years, all my grades were easily 100. I remember as if it was yesterday that I got home with such a terrible grade on English Reading. The only thing I did was to go to the backyard and bury the test in the soil. My mom found out. To my surprise, she wasn’t mad at me. (Now I know why was she going to be mad if I have never been exposed to English language). A few days later, she hired an English tutor for an afterschool session. It only lasted for about 3 months because I moved back to my public school. I didn’t learn the language until the age of 20.

When I was in Junior High, my favorite Spanish teacher taught us about all cultures that existed around the world. She made us create an album with all their history, language spoken, costumes, life style, etc.

I had a problem with public speaking when I was in High School. Consequently, my dad registered me for some private classes to master what he considered was a very important skill to develop. It was at the age of 18 when I was standing at the Municipal Square in front of 500 people talking about the history of the city.

For a long time, I was not sure if I was going to learn a whole new language. But by the age of 25 and after finishing my bachelor degree on Business Administration, I embarked into a new adventure. I registered my self to get a bachelor in Foreign Languages (English of course, French, Italian and German).

I thought learning how to read and write in 4 languages at the same time was tough. It was a personal challenge that I found very interesting. Since French is a Romance language, learning how to read it was a hard task. The fact that many of their sounds are guttural; there are sounds that do not exist in Spanish, or in English. A huge advantage of this language is that its grammar is very structured as well as the sounds. It means to say there are a lot of “Sound Rules” and there is hardly any exception. When in French we find the letter “o” and “u” together, it’s always going to be pronounced as “letter u in Spanish”. Once we memorize the sound rules, it’s going to be easy to know how it must be pronounced. It is just a matter of practice to “make” that sound.

Italian is a Romance language as well. Since its pronunciation is very similar to Spanish, it wasn’t hard to learn how to read it. The structure of the sentences resembles Spanish structure. I started writing essays in Italian really fast. Learning this language was one of the utmost experiences I have ever had.

Learning to read in German was pretty easy, but when it comes to writing it is very difficult. This is because German is a language that derives most of its vocabulary from Latin, Greek, but still takes some words from French and English. Completing a sentence in this language would be hard and complicated.

In spite of all the time invested to learn the above-mentioned languages, I can certainly express that we all have a good reason to learn a new language. Some of the reasons are to discover our roots, passion for travel, academic purposes, pure interest etc. Learning a new language takes time and dedication, but once you learn to be fluent in a second language offers numerous benefits and opportunities.

Learning a second language is exciting and beneficial at all ages. It offers practical, intellectual, and many aspirational benefits. Studies show that learning a second language significantly delayed the onset of many brain related diseases such as Alzheimer and dementia. Compared to those who can only speak their native tongue.

Having all this experience in languages puts me in the path of education. First, I should guide my own kids through literacy paths. And then becoming owner and director of a Learning Center. At first, I began to trust my own recollections. Then attending several seminars about literacy. With nothing to compare them to, I had no sense of how odd my first lessons were. Teaching reading is a hugely complicated task.

I really enjoy reading. Now that I am a mom, I love nothing more than to pass this passion onto my 4 sons and watch their eyes light up when we go to the library to read.