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Obstacles in Reading and Writing

Reading and writing is an essential skill in learning how to speak and listen in English.

While in the early academic program, developing strong reading and writing skills is one of the

critical goals of becoming a good learner. Through reading, one can learn about the world and

expand one's vocabulary, which is also the key to successful writing and spelling. Acquiring

skills and confidence in writing and reading is challenging, and many difficulties students face in

their education course. It results in many consequences, which are a significant drawback in their

academic performance. Therefore, a student needs to possess the right qualities and right

strategies to be a good student and overcome educational challenges in developing efficient

reading and writing skills. A learner needs to have a positive outlook towards studying, a passion

for learning, and a learning motive, which motivates the learner.

Having a positive attitude to studying is essential to overcome the reading and writing

obstacles in learning. A student has to demonstrate that he/she is a hard worker, which expands

one's study or knowledge skills. Amy Tan demonstrated a positive attitude while she learned

how to read and write in English. She knew that her mother spoke broken English, which limited

her to communicate effectively with other individuals. However, Tan was able to understand her

correctly, unlike many other individuals. She would talk on behalf of her mother in phone calls

and at the hospital to express her mother's needs (2). Despite facing many challenges such as her

mother's influence, while learning how to read and write as she worked towards shaping her
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skills to be better than her mother's. The Asian Americans were good in other subjects like math

but remained poor at creative writing because of an unsupportive environment. Tan chose to

rebel that perception and challenge society's assumptions concerning Asian Americans (Tan, 3).

She had a positive attitude towards acquiring reading and writing skills by participating in

programs of creative writing. Sherman Alexie had a positive attitude towards learning, reading,

and writing. Alexie faced significant challenges while growing up. He had low chances of

survival yet had a positive attitude towards studies as he was able to read when he was only

three. He was ridiculed at school but still made education and reading a priority. His family was

poor, but his hard work and positive attitude towards education earned him a sponsorship to

learning reading and writing. Being an Indian was also a challenge as many Indians were

presumed to be poor in learning English (Alexie, 130). he can also testify it while he teaches

other Indian kids the importance of reading books. He is optimistic that when one learns about

the language, it will help save one's future. 

Being passionate about education is essential as it enables one to acquire skills in reading

and writing. Amy Tan is passionate and loves the English language. She spends most of her time

developing her knowledge and skills concerning the language (1). She was born in a society with

difficulties in communicating using English. She even has difficulties communicating with her

mother when she uses perfect English vocabulary. Despite all, she remains passionate in the

language, enabling her to do the unthinkable, being an Asian American creative writer (Tan, 3).

Moreover, Alexie had a passion for developing reading and writing skills. He is an Indian who

was least expected to be a writer. Alexie develops the skills at a very tender age when he faces

many challenges in his surroundings, which could have quickly deemed the light of being a

scholar. However, he remained passionate, became friends with his dad's books even before
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knowing how to read them (Alexie, 129). his passion made him curious when he came across

new words, and with time, he was good at reading and writing.

A learner needs a learning motive to overcome obstacles in reading and writing. The

surrounding has a significant impact on one's ability to develop language skills. Amy Tan lacked

the support of developing skills in reading and writing. Staying with her immigrant family, who

used broken English, affected her results in English tests (Tan, 2). The Asian American

community seemed comfortable using broken English, which did not effectively express their

thoughts; she received little support and motivation to become a good reader and writer.

However, her desire to learn the language and understand the drawbacks of being a poor English

communicator motivated her to do and become better in English speaking. Moreover, Alexie

found a motive in learning how to read and write, which drove his desire in this language. His

father was great fun of books which he brought home. Alexie loved the books, but he could not

read them; hence, he had to learn how to read. When he came across foreign words, it motivated

him to find out their meaning. At times, Alexie lacked the vocabulary to express something, like

a paragraph. He would relate his surrounding to the phrase to understand it better (Alexie, 130).

He also lacked support from his environment where Indian children were expected to fail in

learning the English language. He was expected to be a pediatrician, but he became a writer

(131). Everything readable in his surrounding motivated him to develop his skills in reading and

writing.

Learning English as a second language was also a challenging process. After moving to

America, an English-speaking nation, I became curious about knowing the language to

communicate effectively with others. It was very challenging where poor grammar, lack of

English vocabulary, minimal exposure to reading materials such as books, and poor spelling
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were the main challenges in learning the new language. Vocabulary is the most significant

element in sentence construction, which is fundamental to effective skills in writing. Also,

having little grammar knowledge resulted in anxiety problems while writing sentences with

accurate grammar. It resulted in mistakes in tenses, articles, pronouns, prepositions, and simple

sentence structures. Poor spelling was another challenge that held me back while trying to

develop these skills. Moreover, the lack of exposure to reading materials posed a challenge as I

could not read extensively, which led to lacking skills in writing good texts. Having a positive

attitude, being passionate, and finding the motivation to learn the language helped me overcome

such challenges.

Learning something new is a challenge by itself. Being surrounded by negative

motivation is also another challenge. Reading and writing is not an easy task, especially among

communities where English is their second language like Chinese and Indians. Lack of support

and negative motivation present the main challenge in learning how to read and write among

such communities. Learning reading and writing is essential as it facilitates one to communicate

much effectively. Having a positive attitude towards learning, being passionate in learning

reading and writing encompasses the main strategies to overcome the obstacles in developing

reading and writing skills.   

                  
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Works Cited

Alexie, Sherman. "Superman and me." Los Angeles Times 19 (1998).

Tan, Amy. "Mother tongue." The Threepenny Review 43.7 (1990).