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UWRT 1103
Jacob Rayfield
8/25/14
WP#1

Literary Ripple Effect

My earliest memory of a contributing factor to my literacy narrative is my mother reading to me
at night. I heard all of the normal children's stories such as Where the Wild Things Are, Goodnight
Moon, and various Dr. Seuss books growing up, and my parents taught me how to read the books
through the pictures. When I was very young I used to play video games in my spare time, and I needed
to teach myself how to read to understand the games. I never played any of the games made for
teaching children to read, rather I played strategy games and simulators where I had to use the visuals
of the game to help me learn new words. This helped develop my vocabulary, but I never learned how
to properly write and use correct punctuation and grammar until I was in school.
Most of my literacy narrative up until I was in school had been self-taught, and that greatly
impacted my attitude toward reading and learning in general. I started reading a great deal of real books
in school when I had access to the library. I did not like how the actual teaching in school felt like a
step back, so I spent my time trying to learn to read higher level books such as novels and especially
the non-fiction books at the school library, because they were off limits to kids in my grade. I was very
interested in books about things like the weather and history, and liked to read books that could teach
me something about the world. I was very interested in the way books conveyed information using only
text, and left the visuals for the reader to experience. This was very different from all of the
entertainment that I had seen as a child, where if there was text it was accompanied by bright visuals to
describe a scene that did not leave much up to the imagination. This led to me reading many books that
were written for people older than me, and I had to learn how to read them myself.
When I actually learned to write in school it came naturally to me, as I already knew how to

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speak and had the basic reading skills to know what I was saying. I did have issues when it came to
developing stories and creating details. I suppose that had to do with the games I used to play and their
effect on my writing. The text in games was short and concise, and my writing style developed
similarly.
Nothing contributed more to my literary narrative than playing video games at a young age had.
I mostly played puzzle/adventure games as a kid like SpyFox, and Pajama Sam. They helped me learn
to read at a young age, and spurred me to teach myself to become a better reader so I could learn to
understand more of what I was doing. That left a lasting impact on me that made me work hard to
develop my own literary narrative, using other sources to enhance my ability.