The Importance of Reading and Writing: A Story About My Personal Growth

When I was in elementary school I hated reading because I struggled with comprehension. Most of the time I didn’t remember what I was reading. I often felt ashamed of not being an avid reader because I thought I wasn’t smart enough to understand a text the “right way”. The attention I gave to reading declined, as a result, I kept reading something that I didn’t want to understand. Although I disliked reading in elementary school, I enjoyed writing because writing helped me cope with my innermost feelings. I didn’t see writing as something that I was forced to do, but rather something that I enjoyed doing. During that time in elementary school, I learned more about myself through writing than in reading.

Despite my hatred for reading in elementary school, I realized that I shouldn’t dislike reading. I realized that reading comes from a writer’s experience—a writer’s ultimate goal is to help another writer. Because of that epiphany, I decided that I needed to change the way I viewed reading and writing. I learned to appreciate reading and writing through the stories that I hear from other writers. The stories that writers write for their readers are normally through some form of experience. To help me improve on my comprehension, I began reading novels that I wouldn’t normally read—I disciplined myself to write a summary at the end of each chapter so I can refer back to the chapter if I forgot what it was about.

I’ve never disliked writing because I’ve always felt like writing was a place where I can be the most truthful. Writing allowed me to be honest with myself—whether it’s from being emotional to being angry—the pleasure of writing my feelings onto a piece of paper made me feel at ease with myself. Writing is the biggest contributor to my personal growth. When I look back at different writing styles that I’ve done, I noticed that I struggled most with grammar and punctuation marks. Sometimes I misuse a semi-colon or a hyphen, and sometimes my grammar is written incorrectly. However, that’s the purpose of writing—to learn from mistakes by allowing oneself to keep improving.

From elementary school to currently being a college student, I noticed my strengths and weaknesses. I accepted the importance of reading and writing: the purpose of stories are written for people to learn from each others' mistakes—sometimes people choose not to accept a story and others learn to love the story—the experience that a writer tells the readers is what makes a story worth reading.