Assignment #1: Educational Entertainment

Toys are meant to be fun and playful, but these objects did have an educational influence on my childhood development. My parents have been my biggest motivators at a young age. They helped, inspired and always supported me with my literacy development. Most of the toys involved engagement. I learned the alphabet by sounding out letters, comprehending words to actual nouns, and much more with brands like Vtech, Fisher Price, and Hasbro. This encouraged me to use my skills to understand the idea of how books are used. For instance, reviewing the book cover to confirm that I am holding it correctly.

Based on my cultural background, I wasn't affected by any controversy, or at least I didn't allow it. I was raised in an Hispanic household with parents that pursued me to always do well at school. I attended public school like most of the children in my neighborhood. Education was viewed the same to me even private institutions. As a female, I felt like the students were treated equally, regardless of gender and ethnicity. The goal of the school system was to teach us the basics the right way. Fortunately, that is exactly what I grew up experiencing in a diverse community.

In fourth grade, there were many concepts of books that were revealed to me. The teacher assigned the whole class to read a book by Barbara Park. She wrote, Junie B. Jones a children's book series. These books were enjoyable and quirky, I could not get enough of them because of the animated character and colorful book cover. During that period, I found out that books could be made into films. Harry Potter, a series of fantasy novels, was the first movie I saw that turned words into a real-life image. The experience that significantly impacted my development were the Junie B. Jones books. It gave me sense of imagination of how the characters would look, talk, and act. I practiced by studying each word by speaking aloud and clearly. 

In my earliest years, reading was amusing, but not anymore. I get frustrated if I don't understand what I am reading the first time. I tend to overthink and put a lot of pressure on myself. My role model is Edvige Giunta, who displayed it to be a simple task. Throughout my third semester, she directed me to various methods of literacy altogether. I wrote long stories and research papers that were evidently difficult, but achievable. Writing is my weakness, however, I improved in a four months compared to the previous ten years of schooling.

Literacy is an important procedure that requires individuals to communicate with each other. I feel like it is a necessity because we depend on our own knowledge to be logical from what we have learned from speaking, writing, and reading. I continue to use literacy for school, work, and talking to people. The assignments that were given to me at school which consisted of reading have always inspired my literacy development. I can't expect to fully understand something if I didn't scan through the reading. Literacy is known to exist in our lives, if not then we would never understand each other more than we already do.

Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park

Edvige Giunta (NJCU English Professor)

Educational Tech Toys