My Journey as a Reader
In elementary school, I had the toughest time boosting my level of reading comprehension and my writing abilities. From grades, Pre-K to Third grade, my mom would help me with my homework, until she had given up and had to hire a tutor for me. During time, my mom would help me the best of her ability. However, her help was not nearly enough because she had troubles tutoring me. I was misguided by her, however it was the best she can do. My mom had trouble guiding me with homework because she unfortunately lacked the opportunity to proper schooling. Her help sometimes resulted in me being ridiculed by teachers and classmates because my accent would mix up with hers. There were countless times that I would read out new vocabulary words in a sentence, which would cause the entire class to burst out into laughter. Whenever my reading abilities had been evaluated, I would glimpse over at my teacher, ticking off every word I said correctly and skipping or rewriting words exactly how I mispronounced them. I was known as one of the few kids with the lowest reading levels in my class since I relied on my mom to help improve my English and literature.
Because I was a naive little kid, I was clueless to the fact that my mom’s English was perceived as funny broken English. I recall my teachers having me repeat the word “England” and “Island” several times until it sounded proper in front of the class. I was often put on the spotlight and humiliated. By this time, I noticed distinctions between my mother’s English and the English I had learned in school. I never developed an accent because people around me constantly corrected me to make me sound like on what they thought was ‘normal’.
What helped me notice differences between my mom’s accent and mine was through television and videos online which displayed depictions of numerous accents that were not American and labeled them to be exotic. Many accents displayed on the media targeted various ethnic backgrounds and purposely misrepresenting them and painting these characters as the funny ones for comedic effect. For example, many South Asian actors on television who did not have an Indian accent. They are given roles to speak in an accent. These depictions perpetuate negative stereotypes because it spreads the prenotion that South Asians are ‘funny sounding’ and their culture seeming ‘exotic’ or even ‘weird’. Overall, the media played a role in the way I was treated because of how my accent would mix with my mom. It made me reflect on how people treated my mom because of the way that she spoke.
Not only accent discrimination was an issue hindering my path to strengthen my literacy skills. It was also how the education system fails multilingual students who come from low-income backgrounds. For example, I would pick out a challenging book rated higher than my assigned reading level, in hopes of ‘fixing’ my dumb head. However, this did not help me at all because this worsened my confidence towards becoming a better reader. I felt like an outlier who could not carry on with the rest of the class. I was constantly on the verge of failing the grade because I lacked support from school and home to perform well as a student. My dad worked tirelessly for hours throughout the day to night as a taxi driver. On the other hand, my mom lacked the opportunity to receive a quality education in Bangladesh because she was pulled out of school from an early age.
What contributed to these struggles was the fact that I could not meet a certain reading level that was required for me to pass and move onto the next grade. I was constantly tested on children’s books ranging in alphabetical order from A to Z and struggled to make minimal improvement. The level of difficulty depended on the alphabet. Alphabets in the higher levels indicated a higher reading difficulty. For example, books rated with the letters Q, R, and S are more challenging than books rated A, B, C. Because of these measurements and standards, I felt hopeless and dumber compared to all my classmates because they either exceeded or met the reading expectations according to their grade level.
It took years to find low costing tutors for me since my parents could not afford one. However, they were lucky enough to find only 2 tutors. Not only did this help me somewhat, but I also discovered websites like Khan Academy, COMMONLIT, and NEWSELA. Thanks to these websites, I was able to catch up and improve my literacy skills. After elementary school, I learned to pick up the pace with the materials presented in class. Despite the fact that I believe there is always space for development, I am more confident than ever in my ability to overcome any challenge that comes my way.
I would like to share a guided reading level chart which contributes to one of the many ways on how the education system focuses more on GPA and failing students who do not meet the requirements. Instead of finding ways to improve their performance, they are failed. This is mainly due to the fact that the grading system does not accurately reflect nor represent what the student has learned. Furthermore, these standards are extremely harsh upon low-income students who have very limited or no access to resources to help them improve on their academics. I shared this guided reading level chart because when I was younger, I was a student who could not meet these expectations. Given that I came from a low-income background with immigrant parents, my parents even struggled to find resources or tutors to help me improve because they were too expensive. In elementary school, all students were graded on this chart for their reading abilities, regardless of their background or if English was not their first language. Overall, this chart highlights a social reality of what many students experience and the unrealistic standard that all students must flow in one single pace.
Pictures of me from my very first day of school.
Work Cited:
Doman, Mary. “Lexile Levels: What Parents Need to Know.” Scholastic.com, 2019, www.scholastic.com/parents/books-and-reading/reading-resources/book-selection-tips/lexile-levels-made-easy.html.
“The Portrayal and Representation of South Asians in Western Media.” SevenSix Agency, www.sevensixagency.com/blog/south-asian-representation-in-western-media.
