Brianna McGovern
English 101
1/15/19
“Sponsors enable and hinder literacy activity […]” (178)
Years ago, I would have never thought I’d have such a hard time coming up with a positive experience and a positive sponsor that would help develop my literacy skills. I would have said my mom and the times she would read to me, or my eye doctor and the times helped me with some eye problems. Thinking about it now, nothing really helped-or at least permanently. Little did I know that reading would become my greatest weakness and that I would be my own negative influence on my ability to read and learn. I trapped myself in a toxic relationship with the idea of reading. I chose to recognize that I am the self-perceived cause of my own demise. I am my own sponsor and I have a bad impact on myself as reader.
My mom, my siblings and I used to always have these “reading nights”. We would each pick up a book and gather in my parents’ bed and just read. The lights were dimmed, and the smell of candles filled the room, the windows were open, and as the night crept in, so did the cool breeze. All cuddled up in the covers, it was silent. Everyone was captivated within their book of choice. Both my siblings are older and of course ahead of the game as readers, my sister was reading the Harry Potter books over again, and my brother had just begun. My mom, also, an avid reader, was just reading another huge book like she always was. I on the other hand, would usually bring my little picture books in with me, and have fun looking at the pictures- ignoring the words, and making up my own story to go along with it. But on this night, I decided I was all grown up and that meant reading a ‘chapter book’. I chose Mr. Poppers Penguins because we had read that book as a class in school, so I already knew I liked it and how it went. I was excited to be just like my older siblings and read a book that wasn’t just pictures. I open the book and skip to the first page of the first chapter, and my eyes fluttered over the words before me. I finished the page but realized I didn’t really read it. I didn’t think much of it, so my eyes went over the page again really trying to concentrate this time, but I’d catch myself restarting the line again and again, sometimes restarting on the line below or above. My eyes start to shake, and the words start to vibrate. I can’t concentrate and I get frustrated because I have no idea what I just read, and my eyes physically hurt. My mind began to drift as I blankly stare at the page. “I guess I won’t read today” I thought and wiggled out of bed back to my room to get one of my picture books.
Ever since then I would push the idea of reading away as far as possible, and I would try to get out of it whenever I could. It is always the same… A cross-eyed feeling that results in a headache, the inability to retain information, and the anxiety it gives to me. I dreaded the days when I had to be tested on my reading skills because I always felt less than to those who could read normally, the popcorn reads and the sudden panic that I would be next in line to demonstrate for the whole class that I “couldn’t read”. I felt embarrassed to read aloud because I would trip over my own tongue, read too slow and lose my place often, the air felt heavy, and my face red. My eyes failed me every time. I am the reason of all that is wrong, and because of that I blame myself for my failures and fears of reading and writing. I am the reason I never succeeded and excelled at the art it seems everyone besides me, is good at. My strengths lie elsewhere. My feeling for reading and writing I have today is a result of the mindset I created to make myself feel better – “you just aren’t good at it”, there’s no point to read a book for ‘fun’ because it wasn’t, don’t even bother reading anything because you don’t remember what you read anyway. I am my own sponsor. My eyes are the reason that reading was never my strong suit, and my lack of enthusiasm towards reading is why I never tried to get better, and why I am where I am today.