Ortiz 1

Kate Ortiz
Lynn M. Raymond
UWRT 1104-004, Writing Prompt #1
September 10, 2016
Writing Prompt #1
Reading and writing can be learned through various sources. Whether it may be your
kindergarten teacher or first grade teacher, parents, siblings, relatives, books, etc. For me it was
my kindergarten teacher who first taught me how to enter the world of reading and writing. My
teachers were the ones that had a direct impact on my literacy process but I dont have a vivid
memory of the classes besides me groaning whenever they assigned a paper. My parents did not
have as big of an impact on the other hand. They are from Chile and had only spent a couple of
years in America when I later entered the world. They knew very little English so my sisters
were the ones that I came to for help. My two older sisters learned how to speak and write
English from school just like I did. Whenever I wasnt able to understand or pronounce a word I
would have to go to my sisters. Because I had parents who spoke Spanish I started to understand
Spanish which sometimes mixed with English whenever I spoke at a young age. Because of my
parents situation my sisters helped them with their English and to this day my parents still need
help. Often times conversations with my parents would go like this.
Theres a y-iantic bug on the wall, could you kill it? said my mom.
You mean gigantic? I replied.
Jyes she responded.
Reading was never too hard for me to understand but I do remember that I had a difficult
time writing. I used to get complaints from the teachers saying that they were not able to read my

Ortiz 2
handwriting. I remember in second grade, my teacher would come up to me and ask me to write
the assignment again. I would compare my second grade handwriting to chicken scratch. Letters
were scrunched together or too spaced out which made it difficult to read. Over time my
handwriting did become more legitable from practice but I still get comments about my
handwriting every now and then. The first book series I got really attached to was The Warriors
in sixth grade. I personally do not read for fun but once I started reading this series on my own I
understood how people could get engrossed into their book. I believe that this series helped my
literacy because there were words that I wouldnt understand and so I later looked them up which
improved my vocabulary. I read the books from the library at my school and every time I
finished one book from the series I checked out another. From reading I was able to imagine
another world. The Warriors was my favorite series and will always have a nostalgic feeling to it.