The Battle of Reading
I’ve always been deterred from any form of reading. I have been like that since I was in the third grade. Why the third grade you might ask? That’s when they start testing your reading comprehension. Whenever I try to read I tend to notice it’s only my eyes that are looking across the page but I’m not retaining any information my eyes see. My brain will think about anything but. This became a problem when reading assignments became a normal thing as I went up in grades in school.
Textbooks and old English literature aren’t my first choices for entertainment. Therefore my brain would easily get distracted when assigned reading assignments for school. I never really picked up reading as a hobby so there was never really any practice for reading on my own. Comic books were never something I was drawn to either, mainly because the ones I saw were about Marvel Superheroes and such… don’t hate me, I know it’s an unpopular opinion but to each their own.
Getting assigned a 125 page reading assignment from a comic book called March, put a little worry into my head because I know there would be 125 pages worth of time where a wandering thought could lead me to a plethora of distractions. I started off the book on a good note, I was in a quiet room, I was optimistic. Five pages in and my first distraction hits. I find myself texting back to my boyfriend. So I start the book over, this time locked in, allowing myself to really read the words on the page. After that I didn’t need to be strict on myself because once Congressman Lewis started talking about the chickens he cared for when he was a child, my attention was his. I was worried the Comic book format would be too much for my brain to digest because of how busy the page looks but as the story unfolded and the more and more pages I read I found it easier to understand the text. The pictures painted a good image of emotion and reactions each character had, making me more sympathetic to each individual in understadnig what they were thinking and feeling while facing such discriminating behavior they faced from society. The story itself was informative and captivating for me as the reader. Because of March I may have to rethink my opinion of Comic books, maybe evening reading overall.
I appreciate your honesty in the difficulties you have reading. If I do not lock myself into a text, I also find myself being distracted. The good news is there are TONS of graphic novels that are non-superhero. I would recommend considering those types of text when you have assignments in other classes that require you read and write about a subject. If a comic is not an option, ask the professor.
Reading this blog made me realize the same thing. Growing up I was not a strong reader. I was a more visual learner who liked looking at pictures and colorful words. The small lettering freaked me out. I had a distaste for reading since it felt more like a chore because my parents forced me to do it. It was always, “You have to read 4 chapters of your book before you can go outside,” or something along those lines. Therefore I resented reading.
I realized when I was in third or fourth grade that I was a slow reader because 1) I barely read and 2)when I would read our textbooks in class or just a regular book for reading logs I never understood what I was reading. I always felt dumb because everyone else was understanding and answering the teacher’s questions with ease, but I couldn’t. It was a disaster in my brain because this discouraged me to not read.
I attempted to get back into reading in the fifth grade. My comprehension skills had gotten better, but I knew that there was still more room for growth, so I continued to read and I enjoyed it. In eighth grade my teachers started assigning non-fiction books, more textbook pages, and old literature reading. This made reading a challenge and it felt, once again, like a chore to read. I didn’t have the motivation or the patience to sit still. My brain would run at 100mph because it wanted to do anything, but read the boring text. I eventually began wondering why I should even try if I was just not going to understand what I was reading and I was going to fail. I still did the work, but I never understood the context of what I was reading.
Now that I am in college I regret not reading when my parents told me to read. I feel like if I read more back then, then my reading comprehension skills would be a lot better then they are now and I wouldn’t have such difficulty getting my reading homework for my classes done, but I can’t dwell on the past because I have these next four years to practice becoming a stronger reader.
Growing up through the years and receiving increasingly difficult readings I found myself doing the same thing. I would find something in my room that was just more interesting. As I moved into Highschool and seeing the reading levels of other people I thought it was just me who could not sit down and read a book. I started to realize that I was wrong and hearing this from you, Alaina, I realized that I am not alone.
From 5th all the way up to the present I have read maybe 20 books and most of them came in 5th grade due to a competition. Because of that my reading level is at the bottom of the barrel compared to others and now that I am in college it scares me. I cannot focus, I read very slowly, and I cannot comprehend most of the text. The one thing that I am good at is being stubborn, I will sit down and not get up from my chair for hours until I am finished with the book I have to read.
I will admit I am not the strongest reader, and I too was and still am scared at the March assignment. I cannot read fast at all; it will take me hours to read a textbook all because it is not interesting to me. The same goes for a comic book too, I will skim through the words and forget about the pictures. Reading this made me realize that I am in for a lot during this semester because all my homework is reading and writing.
However, I know one thing that eased me and hopefully can ease you too, Professors are different from teachers. Professors will do everything they can to make sure we succeed. The only thing is we must ask for help. Whether it is sending us to the writing center or one on one’s it will be okay. Especially at Longwood, all my professors on the first day mentioned that we just need to reach out and they will help. Even though my reading level is low I know that it will become much easier with the help of my professors and myself.
In this text there is so much I personally can relate to, such as the concept of reading and not actually registering the information. Growing up, reading was sometimes a struggle, I would stare at the words and try to get the information to go into my brain, but it just would not, therefore I can completely relate to that situation. Distractions I found later would become the biggest factor in not being able to retain the information as I should, picking up my phone, watching television, all of it would defer me from staying on track as I should.
While reading March the ability to understand and to actually want to read more of the story became easier for me. While growing up, it was always long boring stories we were left to read on our own, and it was such a struggle. Having that March is in a comic book format made it alot more appealing to me to stay focused on, having to always have been a visual learner myself. I have always been able to see things and remember them and in highschool teachers started to stray away from the visual way of learning and that made things a little more difficult for me. As a person who can struggle reading a blank page full of words from top to bottom that was just boring to me but coming into having a comic book type of book for my reading material, it was a good change. That change allowed me to know what style of reading helps me best, having it has the visuals and words put together.
Reading this post has really helped me to feel as though I’m not the only one to have struggles with reading, and that it is okay to have difficulties with reading. It has also brought to my attention ways to overcome my struggles and to help me with my further reading skills as well as learning abilities.
I’ve always found it so strange how much a lot of my friends enjoy reading. I would always feel left out as my friends would discuss among each other the latest chapter they read, the newest noble they picked out, or the book they just finished. I was never able to get into literature the same way some of them did. As the years went on, reading felt more like a chore, something that NEEDED to be done, not something I WANTED to do. I kept this mentality up for years, seeing every reading assignment as just more tedious work that needed to get done. Imagine my surprise when I got to college and each class had assigned about 50 pages as homework EVERY DAY.
Going into this class, I thought it would be my least favorite from how much reading I had to do. Once I picked up the books however, my opinion totally changed. I consider myself more of a visual learner, so when I first laid eyes on the graphic novel, it was like a bolder being lifted from my shoulders. I not only felt like I was engaged with the text, but I was totally submerged to the point I almost finished the whole book in one sitting. It covered a very serious topic that still affects us today, a topic I could personally connect with because of my background.
The book did an amazing job at hooking me in. Starting out with the graphic protest and then the sudden shift to the present day had me going on a rollercoaster of questions and emotions, but the scene that left me in shock was definitely the one where Congressman Lewis baptized the little chic. I’m honestly looking forward to finishing this book and reading more for this class.
While reading this blog post, I found myself in the same boat. In elementary school, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Having dyslexia made it extremely difficult for 6 year old Maddie to enjoy picking up books and reading for fun. I started getting taken out of class for special reading group. While I excelled at reading with dyslexia, at this point I simply just didn’t have the love for reading that my friends did. I constantly found myself looking around the class room or going to the bathroom to escape our mandatory reading time in class. Although, growing up with three bothers, it was impossible for me not to read comic books. It was easier for me to read, because they usually have more pictures and visual illustrations then words. When getting assigned March, I was honestly a little relieved. I understand and grasp the book better as a comic then I probably would if it were a regular book. As someone who gets distracted pretty easily from the words on the page, it’s nice to have the pictures there to help me understand what I’m reading. Reading this blog made me feel less alone in the reading dimension, I always felt out casted.
This is something I relate to a lot. Throughout my life, I’ve only read one book from front to back. I had a lot of friends that enjoyed reading, mainly my friends from elementary school. They always talked about how movies were worse than books. Personally, I always enjoyed movies more. I understood when they would mention how you can imagine the scenes in your head but I always struggled with that. I also wasn’t a fan of just sitting down and looking at pages, it couldn’t hold my attention. I also have a problem with reading for a long period of time. A movie is around 2 hours of my time whereas a book typically takes a couple of months. To add even more to the reasons I dislike reading, I can never retain any knowledge from a page, I can only remember 2 things from a chapter. Even from a young age, I’ve had these issues with reading it’s always held me back in school. Especially in high school when I would read multiple articles in science and multiple books in humanities. I just couldn’t keep up and remember anything so I would just give up and pretended I was reading.
However, the books I have been assigned in college have been much better than I thought. My main concern came from seeing all my classes were mainly reading, but I didn’t think I would enjoy them as much as I have. I think it might be the books I’m being assigned are about things I enjoy instead of in high school when the books were about things I wasn’t into. Now it’s also only been 2 and a half weeks but I’m still holding out hope that I’ll be ok reading for the rest of the semester.
I found this text interesting in the way that in some ways I found it relatable but in other ways I found it only moderately relatable to me. This is true with me because I too have trouble reading but contrary to your past with reading I actually used to really love it. For example, up until senior year of highschool I had a strong GPA, excellent grades, and always put my schoolwork and reading first. I have a notable amount of memories of staying in my room some summer days just reading both fiction (especially books in the Percy Jackson series) and nonfiction (mainly history books). I did this despite having many friends who’d want to do stuff with me simply because I liked reading a lot.
By the time that I made it into senior year of high school I was beginning to dislike reading more and more. Infact, by the time that the coronavirus lockdowns ended I was bored of it and just wanted to be around lots of people and felt sick of reading. One of the side effects of this was that my grades began to drop and I almost never read, I left almost no time for reading and now made a lot of time for things like working out, track, and going to parties.
Now being in college I still do not like reading although I would end up not disliking it as much as I did in twelfth grade. Moreover, in the first two weeks I had a lot of trouble reading textbooks and made hanging out with people, as well as working out and lacrosse, things that I focused on more than schoolwork. Although this was the case the first two weeks I can confidently say that I now put schoolwork first largely due to the realization as to how truly important homework is and it was also bolstered by the comic book March as, just like in your text, it made me rethink the way I thought about reading as I actually found it very interesting. In conclusion, I found this text pretty relatable in the way that I didn’t like reading but the comic book assigned got me to rethink the way that I viewed reading.