Regarding primary school, there are a variety of moments I can remember of learning the skills of reading, writing, listening and talking. In most of these memories, I vaguely recall of having to sit in a circle with my reading group (which was divided into levels) and take turns in reading out parts of the book. In primary one, the books we would focus on were the “Biff, Chip and Kipper” books. Inside, the pages were mostly filled by a large photo, with a sentence of about 4 or 5 words along the bottom of the page in a large font. I also remember in primary one having to practice our handwriting with joined letters and ‘finger spaces’. I slightly remember the orange covers on the reading books in primary seven with a picture placed in the centre. I also remember in primary 7 we read Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as a class. From around primary three, I remember having to do spelling tests, SRA and ‘listening assessment’ type activities frequently, although the SRA was usually brought out as punishment (in primary and secondary) which is probably why I have negative connotations towards it. We also took part in “ERIC” (Everyone Reading In Class) after lunch, sometimes to calm the class down after lunchtime excitement, as well as to encourage the class to read books more.

I remember from around primary five that I was in the ‘most able’ groups in literacy and numeracy. I think if I wasn’t, this would have affected my confidence and would have restricted me from putting in effort to improve, as I would have felt unable to do any work to a decent standard. I feared peer assessment with the embarrassment of getting something wrong and my peers knowing this.

As I got older and transitioned into secondary school, I continued to gain quality marks and I began to enjoy reading. This continued to improve my literacy skills and I began to feel more confident with my writing. I left school with an A at higher English, and if I were to have tried, I could have completed advance higher with the help of an English teacher who very much believed I could’ve gained a good mark in the exam. I began advance higher, but shortly after dropped the subject when in my first essay I was disappointed by a low mark when the rest of the class achieved better. Instead of comparing myself to them, a part of me wish I listened to my teacher who told me not to be disheartened as I was still learning and there was still plenty of time to improve. As true as this was, when Shakespeare was introduced, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I loathed Shakespeare. I simply couldn’t understand any of his work. I dropped it immediately, to the disappointment of my teacher. I still remember on my last day of sixth year while going around to get my shirt signed, said teacher and another colleague of hers who had me in S5 (for higher) mentioned that I should consider going to University to study English.

In S1, I have faint memories of learning some ‘tricks’ for Standard English. There were in relation to the differences between ‘to’ and ‘too’, ‘there’, ‘they’re’ and ‘their’, and why English isn’t spelled the way we say things (due to accents and dialect!). I enjoyed reading short novels and learning about critically analysing pieces of work, as well as writing my own. The only thing I didn’t enjoy when I was younger was solo talks. Being shy and reserved affected me greatly when it came to using my talking skills to present something to my fellow classmates.

I am very thankful for the teachers who have taken the time to develop my language and literacy skills, I wouldn’t be where I am today without them. My parents were also a huge help – even though they don’t enjoy literacy themselves. When getting homework, they would try their utter best to help me complete it, from writing short poems on ladybirds (thank you mum) to simply going through my letters and sounds with me (thank you dad)!