“The Light Lamp” by Dinah Chemmachel My earliest encounter with reading was walking through the endless bookcases in Concord elementary school, not knowing how to read. My parents had a difficult time teaching me as they were both immigrants, who were learning English themselves. My parents and I all had a darkness in our home since we didn’t know the gift of reading English, yet. They continue to speak with an accent til this day. They continue to stutter and sound out English. It is still a mountain my family has to climb. Although I don’t have a memory of my parents teaching me to read, I learned from others surrounding me. My siblings. My teachers. My friends. Slowly, I learned how to read. Letter by letter. Sound by sound.
I turned into an avid book reader. I knew the librarians by name and any second I had free in class I would head to the library. I would check out collections of books that mainly consisted of Junie B. Jones, The Magic School Bus, Diary of the Wimpy Kid, and Captain Underpants. …show more content…
I would read in the dark with a little fan light every night. I remember hearing my dad coming in and yelling at me for reading in the dark. He would claim my eyesight would worsen, but I always ignored him (little did I know he was right). My happy place was me in my bed, snuggled under my white, furry blanket, with a book in my hand. Some kids would be up watching TV or playing on their Nintendo DSI, but not me. As soon as my parents checked on me at night, I would pull out my book from under the sheet and continue reading till the middle of the night. Not only would I read one book at a time, I would read two or three at a time. It was a