Personal Narrative: Overcoming The Struggle

Overcoming “The” Struggle I don’t recall having a hard time learning how to read. It was one of those things that just came easily to me for some reason. For the most part I enjoyed reading as well. The only time I didn’t enjoy reading was when I didn’t understand a certain word or a certain phrase. One of the strongest memories I have from learning to read was when I was unable to pronounce the word “the”. I remember this like it was yesterday. I was sitting in my parents wood paneled room on the first floor of my house. We would sit on their not so comfortable bed and my parents would shut off the tv and sit down next to me and listen to me read from one of the many books in the series Fun with Dick and Jane. The two or three word sentences like “See Jane run” seemed almost too easy for me until they contained two of the most frightening letters for me at the time, “th”. For some reason I could never quite pronounce the letters T and H. I would sound them out separately but could never quite put them together. I remember my frustration when my dad had to repeat over and over again what the word actually sounded like. I recall that he also got frustrated, too. The word “the” wasn’t the only word I struggled with. Basically any word with a “th” in it was a rough word for

I learned more from reading than I would have from playing with toys that 's for sure. That 's the funny thing. Reading has become such a fundamental part of my life that I tend to take it for granted. The things that seem so simple to us now were not always that way. For example walking or riding a bike. This is a good point for my teaching ministry as well. Reading is such an important thing. Without the ability to read, there is not much a person can accomplish. That is why it is so important that I should encourage my future students, and their parents, to read as often as they