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This book traverses the theme, 

Wanting to Learn from a Young 

Age, and discusses my early 

literacy experiences up until the 

present and then into the future.

When I was a baby, after many months of listening 

to my mom say, "Say Mommy, Sydney, say 

Mommy," I finally uttered my first word. I said, 

"Mommy." 

Part I: Childhood Literary Experiences.

Once when I was a few months old, I wanted to 

change my diaper, I remember making some kind of 

gesture to the diaper bag and yelling at my mom to 

get her attention. She looked at me and said, "Wait, 

Sydney, I have a few things to do." I started 

grumbling to her telling her, "No, now mommy. I 

want it now." She replied, "If you want it so bad, do it 

yourself." I told her I would, and left the room. 

When my mom was finished, she came in to check on 

me and what she found was me struggling to put on 

my diaper.

When I was a little older, around five, I would 

always listen to the music cassettes my older 

sister love to make. Whenever she was going out, 

she always popped in a cassette of her favorite 

artist. 

My first song that I partially memorized was one 

of my sister's favorites. My mom, sister, and I 

were in the car and when the song came on, I 

belted out the lyrics. I sang, "Y'all gon' make me 

lose my mind. Up in here, up in here."

When I was six, I was dancing in the living room near 

the stereo, and not listening to my mother's warnings 

of getting myself injured. When I tripped and started 

crying my mom rushed towards me. She noticed I was 

bleeding and after failing to stop the blood flow, I 

went to the hospital. 

When I was going in for snitches, I heard my mom tell 

my sister to sing me to sleep, so I wouldn't be scared. 

My sister sang the song, "Jesus loves me this I know, 

for the Bible tells me so..."

During the summer before I entered elementary 

school, I stayed with my grandmother. 

My grandmother wanted to prepare me for school, so 

she read me sections of the Bible and had me recite 

them. She also showed me how to count money.

Soon, I could read sections of the Bible by myself. I 

could also count money very well.

Part II: Elementary School Literacy Experiences.

When I first entered elementary school, I had 

never practiced writing before. And like most 

kids, I had problems with letters and spelling 

my name. My biggest problem was writing my 

"S" backwards when trying to spell Sydney.

When I entered elementary school, our teacher 

gave us a reading assessment the first day. The 

assessment was to let us read a book of our own 

choosing and writing/answering questions about 

the book we chose. 

Our teacher gave us a week to finish the book 

and questions, and when I finished the 

assignment in three days, she seemed surprised. 

When I spoke to her to ask her if I could do 

another assessment, she let me.

When I was in second grade, I usually had bad 

marks in Writing class. I was a very orderly kid, 

and nothing made me feel more out of sync 

than my penmanship growing up.

I was listening when my teacher said why I was 

getting bad marks was because, "I liked to go 

over my writing assignments multiple times until 

I liked my penmanship, and that was slowing 

me down from advancing in my class."

Part II: High School Literary Experiences.

I was very nervous entering high school, and 

from the things I had heard; I thought it would 

be good for me to really listen to all my 

teachers.

This was especially true on the first day when 

my teachers went over their syllabuses, and I 

had to really listen when they went over it in 

class and asked us to get our parents to sign it 

as well.

My high school did daily announcements 

throughout the day like Morning Prayer, School 

Announcements, Saying for the Day, Lunch 

Prayer, Announcements for Students, Closing 

Prayer and Principal Saying. 

You always had to be listening to the 

announcements because if they said your 

name and you weren't listening, you would've 

missed something important that pertained to 

yourself or your parents.

When my school gave the students of 2014 

computer tablets, they encouraged us to use 

the ThinkPad system. 

I really had to work hard a second time on my 

penmanship while operating the computer's 

touchscreen system if I wanted my class notes 

to be legible at all.

When my English teacher announced that we 

would read, The Great Gatsby; I was really 

excited. When I started reading the book, I got 

such a thrill. It remains one of my favorite 

books to this day.

The most common thing that happened when I 

was in high school was pronouncing my name 

for people. 

One day, I was accepting an award and the 

teacher, who was introducing me, asked me 

how to say my name. I told her, to make it 

less complicated on yourself, just say, "Yellow 

Tea-Paul", instead of "Yelity-Paul".

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