My Journey of Reading and Writing Since Childhood and until the Present Day

The ability to decode language on its most basic terms sounds easy but sure is not. Well, it was not that easy for me, a little girl starting a second language. My native language is “Twi”, the Ghanaian language, but here I was learning another language, a complicated and weird one. The language of the white man. How was I to comprehend those clusters of letters combined to form something they call words? And the most intimidating of them all was distinguishing between the British and American english. I could not even read my name, let alone spell it. Coming out a success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all love of what I am doing or learning to do. The English language has helped me alot, I put my all to it, setting goals for myself and striving hard to speak it. I can gladly say, though I’m not perfect, I am better.

I never had the luxury of being taught english by my parents or being read to by my them. Starting the english journey was everything along the lines of my alphabet song. I got this alphabet chart from my older sister, it had pictures of items for every letter and its word. I liked how colourful it was, which made it easier to study it. She would guide me through it and give me candy if I was able to meet her fixed point. The candy she used to give me was a different candy altogether which till now I’ve never set my eyes on it anywhere before. This weird candy was called “alewa”, it was black and white in colour, tasted ashy and was very hard. Since I always wanted her candy, I always had to practice these letters and get them right. I’d go around everyday shouting and singing ; “ A for Apple, B for boy” and it goes on and on, even with that I would mess up at times and be like, “C for elephant”, then she would laugh it out and correct me, until it became annoying.

I had to learn how to spell my name and every way my mom and sisters did it to help me proved futile. I recall one day I was out playing in the sun, then this neighbour of ours who is close to our family called me and started, “ you're playing ? do you know how to spell your name? Come and sit down and start spelling it”. I started crying and muttering the letters …. R…... I…. . C... until this girl let me go. What actually made me pick it up very fast was when I was told that my name would be changed if I didn't learn how to spell it correctly and also pronounce it. I was scared and also didn't want my name to be changed. I mean who wouldn't like to be called Richelle. Every time, before I was allowed to play or given sweets, I had to be able to spell my name right, and funny enough whenever I got it right, I’d come back the next day with a blank memory as if I wasn't the one who just got it right the previous day. I didn't even understand why I should be able to spell my name, if I could hear my name being called and I could respond to it, then why did I have to care about the spelling.

I can vaguely remember watching little kids shows. Children's shows such as Sponge Bob Square pants as well as Dora the Explorer really impacted how much of the English language I absorbed as a little kid. Since this shows didn't really have big words, it was easy for me to understand. SpongeBob, a square yellow, witty and smart sponge living in a town called bikini bottom undersea had me sitting at the back of the television set, screaming “I am ready” as he asks “who’s ready”. I would memorize some lines in the show to repeat it at my own free time and make fun of it, because I didn’t know its meaning but liked how it sounded.

I will say Dora was my favourite, her song could raise a dying soul from the dead. On Saturday mornings, when everyone was supposed to be doing some cleaning, I'd be sitting comfortably on the floor with some kids waiting for the tv to start playing “ Dora Dora Dora the Explorer rrrrrrr” It was a nice show. Dora helped myself and the other kids learning how to read and write in little ways only we can tell. Alongs the line of the movie she would tell us to repeat something or even make us choose, let's say what a dog is or a pineapple is. Dora went on so many adventures and we went with her, I remember my favorite adventure was when we went to pablos mountain. Pablo had lost his flute and a drought had hit his family's farm. She would sing aloud “ come on everyone, everybody lets go, come on let's get to it, I know that we can do it” then she would ask “ where are we going?” then we respond, “Pablos mountain”, “ Where are we going?” “Pablos mountain”. Hahahaaa Pablos mountain!

I recall walking into my kindergarten class at Association International School and seeing all these letters, images and drawings with bright colours and people like myself who were also struggling to read and write. My teacher back then was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever come across, she did not seem to be bothered by anything we did and had that tender heart and patience to teach kids. For some reason I remember how she taught us the letters B and D and how we would think that there sisters but they are cousins. We were taught simple words like 'g' 'o' is go, then 'c' 'a' 't' cat, that helped me a lot. In the light of the fact that, with that way, I was going from reading two letter words to three letter words and forth. In my primary one class, I started using this books which was called ‘My first copy book’, which is a writing book. It was mandatory for everyone since it was meant for us to better our writing and reading skills, as well as get a neat handwriting. I traced the letters given to us as homework and also had a spare one to do at home. Our teacher would write words like very good and excellent under words and letters we wrote well, so my little me would do anything to see the scribbles of her red ink say good on my sheet. The copy book really helped me a lot, I saw the connection of letters better with it and how to combine and read them.

As we progressed we did exercises like dictation, where we made to spell words. I used to say my favorite subject was dictation. It was all fun, trying your brain to spell, and having the whole class clap for you. This gave us the chance to model many writing behaviors including handwriting, matching sounds to letters to spell words and sentence formation. There was a pile of old books sitting at the side of my teachers table that caught my attention due to its colour and drawings. I picked up the book and read “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Isabella Girl on the Go”. Before I opened the book, the fact that the girls on the cover looked like they were close to my age multiplied my interest.

Back then in my country, every little kid was made to use a pencil, that was mandatory, until you're able to write properly then you were able to use a pen. It was like using a pen determined if we knew how to write or not. I knew I was growing and I had to use a pen. I started practicing more words and writing them without the help of a writing book, I tried writing in books with lines, so as to straighten my letters, all because I wanted to start using a pen at school. I could say my happiest day during those times was when I was finally allowed to use a pen because it actually meant I knew how to write. From there we were treated as students who could read and write. My first major writing was on the topic, “How I spent my vacation holidays’ and it was supposed to be 200 words. I don't remember what I wrote, but I know it was a big mess, with my paper bleeding with red ink of course. My mistakes were corrected and till now I’m learning from them.

It wasn’t easy grasping everything, translating words from my language to english just to know the meaning, and above all putting them on paper. But how far can I go without literacy? Literacy is more than just words and meaning. It affects my life directly and brings about a greater productivity. Being literate is critical to my well being. Reading and understanding has helped formed a better me, and understand lives around me. Through everything I’ve come to know that literacy really counts in all aspects of life, and not only my mother tongue is necessary.