Growing up I was never much of a reader or writer but I really enjoyed sports and my family was always super active. At the age of nine, I got involved in the sport of rock climbing. One key component of the sport is route reading. This essentially means you are able to look at the holds and where they are placed on the wall and then be able to visualize and see how to do the climb as well as notice how to hold each individual hold on that specific route. This isn’t a  form of reading directly, but it is a form of literacy. As I got more involved and more competitive in the sport, I also became more literate on the topic and the act of rock climbing. Because of this I became more invested and interested in the sport. As a whole, the sport of rock climbing really helped me to be where I am today with my literacy. Climbing, and all the people who taught me to be the climber I am today, is my sponsor for literacy. Being super involved and passionate about one sport, I was always looking up scores from recent competitions, reading articles on the latest stories and trips of the pros, and reading books about climbing. I found myself wanting to know more and gain more knowledge on how to be the best climber I could be. In order to accomplish this, I was finding myself constantly reading books and articles. These books were often times on the correct mindsets and techniques to keep in mind when climbing and the articles often were about exciting things that people did on their weekend trips in Yosemite or Squamish, for example. Although I never considered myself to be the most involved reader or writer throughout my years as a student, I now realize I was reading, just not in the way we were taught in school. Climbing was teaching me a new form of literacy everyday for years, and although this wasn’t sitting down and reading for hours I was engaging in a different type of knowledge and reading.  Throughout my many years as a climber, and my many years of constant interest in the sport, I began to, at some point,  branch off to more books than just climbing books and articles. I was reading adventure books and classic literature books. My intense passion for the sport of rock climbing set me up to be where I am today in the form of literacy. What started with just the sport on its own eventually brought me to reading things solely on climbing, and then as I got older it branched out to more than just the sport.  I was beginning to read more, and enjoy it. For me reading has never been a passion, and I have never been one of the kids to read 5 books over the summer just for fun, but I do read more now than I ever have in the past. I do attribute most of my literacy skills to my many years of climbing and interest in the sport. Climbing on its own definitely takes on its own form of literacy, and without learning this sport and learning all the knowledge and skills it requires, I would not be where I am today. These skills and knowledge I learned through the sport and the coaches I had while involved in the sport were, and are, huge sponsors of my literacy today.  I would have read way less, and my interest in books would not be the same, or anywhere close to where it is now. Through learning a new sport inside out, I was able to find a new interest in something I would have never expected when I was younger. That new interest for me is reading.

Brandt, Deborah. The Sponsors of Literacy. National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement,       University at Albany, State University of New York, 1997