I became literate through many different means. There are three aspects of literacy: spoken language, reading, and written language. My journey to becoming literate started from birth. My grandmother was a school teacher so I had an "advantage" over the average baby.
             Adults around me would talk to me frequently. My father was a stickler about people talking to babies in a normal voice instead of with "baby talk." By having this kind of stimulation I began listening to the sounds of the words being spoken to me. As all babies do I tried imitating the sounds I heard. I began to "coo" and babble back to my parents and other adults. People would repeat the same word over and over to me. I soon began to catch on and said my first word. My first word was "da da." This was a big step in my literacy development as my first spoken word. My father also didn't like people to use nicknames such as "pumpkin" to refer to me so I quickly learned my name.
             Skipping ahead a few years as my vocabulary grew I would try and say big words and they just didn't come out quite right. I would try to say asparagus and it would come out "bascarious." I also tried to say spaghetti and it came out "bascedy."
             I began attending The Daycare of McLean County at age 2 ½. They further helped in my quest to become literate. I began to learn the alphabet at daycare. My mother too worked with me at home to learn the alphabet. One day my mother and I were at the park. I was climbing the ladder up to the slide and she was climbing the ladder behind me. I began to recite the alphabet and went through the entire alphabet! My mother was astounded because she didn't even know that I knew the entire alphabet.
             When my mother would be balancing the checkbook or writing something I would sit there and "write" with her by making lines on my piece of paper to form the "letters" I was learning. Some people would call this "mimic writing." The daycare told my mother that th...