The earliest I’ve experienced becoming literate is at home. My first teachers are my family members. Learning how to read and write from my brother and sister to my parents teaching me a different language, Creole. In my household being able to read and write was important. “It’s needed to succeed in this world” my father would always say. As I grew up learning my family’s language became important as well. If not, communicating with my family in Haiti would be difficult and frustrating. I had to be able to pronounce, speak, sing, read, and write in Creole. The most challenging part with this language is writing it. I began to pick up the language the more I was surrounded by it. Often at times, I felt discouraged because I barely understood what someone would ask me. Nodding, smiling and laughing are my go to when I can’t respond or understand. As many times I struggled, I did not let it keep me from learning more and practicing. I had my parents support to correct, reassure, and motivate me.
Further into school literacy became different and challenging. Inside and outside of school there was a lot of code-switching. I used code-switching often between my peers and teachers. Inside of school students learned how to speak, read, and write in French and Spanish. Learning these two languages has a big contrast from elementary school to high school. Being able to count from 1-20 was a big deal in elementary school. I remember in one of my English classes in high school, we began to read plays by William Shakespeare. The vocabulary and language were not the easiest to understand. Often I highlighted and circled words I didn’t know. This was also discouraging and uncomfortable to read words that I’d usually see people perform. I feel this impacted my development to reading poetry books. I read poetry with rhythm in my head to let the words flow and feel them.
Around the time I was able to read and write in my first and second language, I began to feel literate. But also having the ability to learn, and use these two tools for other languages in the world. I enjoyed writing in cursive a lot when I was younger. I enjoy reading, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, and a few comics. I tend to listen to music and films in different languages rather than reading it. The way I feel today as a literate person is average. There is so much more to learn and expand that I can bring to my vocabulary. I continue to use literacy by reading books, speaking and writing my second language more. My mother and I often help each other with how to spell or pronounce a word in Creole and English, we learn from each other. She inspires me to be as good as her with quickly developing Creole as she does the same with English. Literacy inspired me to learn different languages, practice, and expand my vocabulary.
