I would remember in Kindergarten where we would play games as a class to figure out how to say certain words. And if we’d get it correct then we would get a prize at the end of class, I would always be excited for this because I don’t think I’ve won a prize from playing before. This one time in class when we were playing the word was “Direction”. The entire class was silent trying to think of how to say this word. To me it just clicked and I shouted out “DIRECTION!”. I was so happy because it was my first time earning a prize and It made learning more engaging for me.

Growing up I remember having this Spanish children’s book and I would always bring it to my mom or dad so they could teach me how to say the words. This pushed me to learn Spanish because it was kind of awkward when someone talks to you in Spanish and you don’t know how to respond because you can’t understand what they mean. As I got older I realized in Spanish speaking households they sometimes don’t teach their child Spanish and either just assume they’ll pick it up as they get older. I’m glad my parents took the time and taught me Spanish when I was younger because I’m now able to understand and speak it. 

In elementary school they would test us by having us read books to get a sense of our reading level and I would always get so nervous and try my best not to mess up or take too long with words when reading every time I had to take this test. I didn’t want my reading level to decrease because of my mistakes. During reading time I would get books that are a bit higher than my reading level to see if I could pronounce the words or make any mistakes while reading. I feel like this helped me long term because I was able to improve my reading comprehension and vocabulary.