I believe reading and writing are important tools that a person needs throughout their lifetime regardless of what profession someone is in. Literacy can open up many possibilities for someone. Writing well helps to convey one’s ideas clearly to others.

My earliest memories of reading a book are those of text books in second grade. I loved the stories that graced our text books. The heroic stories were in the history books.  Inventions and discoveries were found in the science books. These books have opened a great new world to me. I have learned many things from reading them.

I read about inventions and discoveries in my science books. From these books, I learned how a heavy airplane can fly up in the air. I uncovered the inner workings of a car and the differences between four cylinder and six cylinder engines. I found out that BenjaminFranklin invented the lightning rod in 1752 and ThomasAlvaEdison invented the light bulb in 1879. I was distraught to learn that sulfur which was used to make the wonderful fireworks displays was also the principal ingredient of gunpowder. Books contained endless amounts of information for me to learn.

I also learned how my country was created from my history books. I felt intimately connected with the heroes and heroines who fought for our country. The stories and the illustrations were so vivid that I could envision their triumphs and their defeats.  The stories told me how my people fought and end the one thousand years of domination by the Chinese and how my people struggled and regained their freedom from the French colonists. I had so much admiration for their deeds that I wanted to join the service when I grew up. They stirred up my patriotism and my love for my country.

Reading reinforced my passion for learning. I could not get out of a book store without buying a book, and I could not pass up an interesting book without reading it. I collected many books that were discarded from the library. I would always be willing to take any book that no one else wanted. I always learned something new from a book. No matter if it was a good story or a bad story, I always tried to learn something from it.  I evaluated the reasoning behind someone’s actions, and then developed my own ideals from what I read.

I also learned the concept of writing at a fairly young age. In first grade, I learned to write the alphabet. In second grade, I traced and wrote simple words. I always practiced my hand writing and completed my papers with pride. I was proud of the correct heights for my “h, b, k, l, and t” and correct lengths for my “f, g, j, p, q, y, and z”. In third grade, I started learning parts of the sentence and began to write short essays with simple sentences that only included subject, verb, and object. By the time I was in fourth grade, I had already started writing long informative essays, persuasive essays, observation essays, narrative essays, and personification essays.

I always loved to do these assignments. I spent countless hours to polish my essays and earned good grades for them. I even submitted my stories and poems to a children’s magazine when I was in high school. Some of my writings were published and those were my proudest moments.

Those early learning and practicing experiences have served me well, even when I attended college in the United States. As a teacher, I will make certain that my students will have the tools they need to be successful both in college and in life. My students are reading books in their hands, not on the Internet. They write the drafts of their essays with papers and pencils. They are allowed to type their final products on the computers after all of the revisions and proofreads are done.