My literacy life has been all about interpretation. Being bilingual isnt an easy thing.

My
parents are originally from the country of Pakistan. Growing up my mom taught me a language
called Pashto, which is spoken in a certain province in Pakistan, named Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Within my family I speak Pashto with my mother and English with my father. My mother can
speak three different languages (Urdu, Pashto, and English), while my father can speak five
different languages (Urdu, Pashto, English, Hindko and Punjabi). The ability of both my parents
and I being bilingual has really helped my thought process develop faster whether its in
academics or just plain life in general. My home literacy practices growing up were focused on
English because I was born and raised here in the U.S.
Literacy Opportunities Inside and Outside of Home
I can speak Pashto but I cannot write it, though I wish I could. Its a unique language. My
home environment growing up was characterized by the presence of print, media, and many
more literacy materials, such as books. My mom taught me the process of reading and to sound
out words. I was exposed to a lot of books that had moral meanings to them so I could not only
learn to read and write, but to become a model citizen when I was all grown up. My mother had
the technique of giving me a treat whenever I sounded out a word correctly or wrote out my
name in the proper manner; this was to ensure my hard work paid off. Also, another unique
way I learned to read was watching Bollywood films with my mother. She loved them and I
agreed to watch them with her to at least try to be a good son. I probably became one of the
fastest subtitle readers of the decade because of the amount of movies I watched. Every day
before I went to bed my parents made sure that I got my colors correct and also we would review
the alphabet a few times. In the morning my father would read the local newspaper and I always
wanted to copy him because I looked up to him, so I would imitate his style except I would be
holding one of my own adventure packed books in my hand. I loved to read within my household
because it was the most comfortable thing in the world to snuggle up in bed and read a good
book.
I improved my opportunities to become a better writer at a young age by watching my
dad write long, complicated emails to his employees at the job he was working at. They involved
a lot of sophisticated words that I would not understand at the time, but I tried my best to
somewhat compose essays of my own. My mother helped me learn the alphabet by making me
write my ABCs over and over again until my right hand was worn out. It wasnt supposed to be
a punishment, but I always thought so. She didnt care about how neat my hand-writing was, as
long as I was making the correct letters and words I was fine. Sometimes my mother would
speak to me in Pashto and then tell me to write out what she said in English. I didnt understand
what the reason for this was; I think she meant it to be a different kind of exercise to help me
write better. I thought it was unique because nobody else I knew (except for my twin brothers)
could do something like that. I also became a better writer attending school obviously. My
teacher would help ensure that I did my homework of writing my alphabet by testing me on what
I learned the day before. I aced those tests because of the amount of practice I would do at home.
Literacy Instructions Inside and Outside of Home
The most significant form of literacy instructions that I received within my home was
story telling. Story telling was a vital aspect of my drive to learn. Not only did I love when my
mother would read a book aloud to me, but it would sooth me to sleep. When I reached the age
of 5-6 I started to read tales from a book aloud to my mother instead. This would help my
pronunciation of words become firm. My mother would create flashcards of a bunch of words I
had a little difficulty sounding out and would make me read them aloud almost every day to
ensure that I became familiar with them. This came easy to me because it was the exact same
practice that we would do in elementary school. My teacher would instruct the whole class to do
various activities with newly learned words that we knew, such as scavenger hunts, sing-a-longs,
and many others. When I would come home the activities I did with my parents were drier, but
nonetheless they helped tremendously. I learned more about past, present, and future tense at
school, and at home it was just learning how to read new words and pronounce them correctly.
As a child, my vocabulary expanded tremendously and I had quite a few words to choose from at
my disposal when writing short essays in school. I remember times when my teachers in school
would be surprised by the way I would use certain words that were considered hard in sentences.
The credit goes to my parents, especially my father, who motivated me to learn to broaden my
vocabulary when reading a novel.
Following instructions was something I was very good at from an early age. Once I
learned how a particular concept worked, I did not need it repeated to me again; I knew how to
perform the newly learned task with ease. At home, even though my parents did not focus much
on creative writing skills, I learned most of my creative writing skills at school. At home my
parents taught me most of what she knew about reading comprehension so that I could become
an efficient reader; they said it would help me in the long run when I study for exams and have to
review material. They were right. Today, because of them, I can say that I am an above average
reader within my peers. From the get-go I learned to develop good reading skills from home and
I would transfer those skills on to paper when I went to school to become an efficient writer too.
Given instructions whether at home or in school, and because of my diverse background, coming
from a bilingual family, it has helped me to understand the concepts behind reading and writing
as a whole.
Literacy Cooperation Inside and Outside of Home
Cooperation is the basis of learning something. When I cooperated at a young age with
my parents, teachers, and peers, it helped me learn at a faster pace. If you put in serious effort the
reward is that much greater. Learning how to read from my mother wasnt an easy task for me,
because English was a second language for her. Though, for someone who was grown up in
multi-lingual household, she was a pretty good teacher. She put in the time and effort to teach me
the correct way because she loves me. Some of the things that my mother wanted me to do were
to read aloud any words I didnt understand the meaning of while reading novels and look them
up in the dictionary. Then I would have to come to her and explain to her the new word I learned
and use it in a sentence. I didnt do this or every single word that I didnt know, but I cooperated
enough that it helped me expand on my vocabulary. Also, sometimes my parents would initiate
casual conversations with me using some of the newly learned words that I understood so I could
get used to using them on a daily basis. These conversations were pretty fun because we would
talk about some of the most random things you could think of. I would especially love the
conversations I would have with my dad. We would start talking about sports, mostly about the
Miami Dolphins, which are our favorite professional football team. Our conversations would go
on for over an hour and I enjoyed every bit of it, not only because I would be bonding with my
dad, but also because he we would update each other about the teams news and current
whereabouts. I am a huge football fan so any talk to do with the sport fascinated me.
In school, I learned a lot through not only my teachers, but the help of my peers also. The
activities that we would do were a group effort. We all had to chip in our parts for the good of
our education in the present and future. We would get into groups of 2 or 4 with our friends
depending on the activity and then do the assignment at hand. I remember a lot of them were
various assignment sheets spread out across the room and each group had to race and finish the
most assignments they could in the allotted time. I have always been a competitive person in the
classroom and I hate to lose at anything ranging from sports to academics. So whenever my
group would come in second or third I would get upset and exchange a few words with the
slackers of my group. Cooperation is how anything and everything functions properly in the
world.
Socio-Emotional Quality Inside and Outside of Home
My socio-emotional quality within my household was very good growing up. I had the
support of my two older brothers, who are twins, and my parents. My cultural background has
actually helped me in a sense to truly understand the meaning of diversity. Diversity is
something that each classroom has and its essential in America. My parents come from a very
traditional background, which is part of the reason why my mom taught me Pashto.