The house Queens, New York - Essay Example

The house Queens, New York where I grew up in and spent most of my childhood, looked more formidable and forlorn than awe-inspiring. Its walls have now started to give in a little; the ceiling has begun to leak when it rains and the iron grills on the second floor windows have been leisurely yielding to rust and the changes in weather. At one glance it doesn't seem to show that the house bestowed us the best learning experience children could achieve. The house is now decrepit, dilapidating and in virtual disrepair, almost empty of laughter and gaiety, and wanting of the possessive warmth of its master.

Not long ago, Queens was home for the five of us - me my two other sisters and my parents. When we were growing up, we divided the four-bedroom house into two wings; the right wing and its four rooms were our bedrooms. The second half of the house was turned into a library and a study as books, newspapers, magazines and journals littered the whole house from the kitchen to the front porch. We could not remember not reading. Since my mother taught all of us to read at a very early age of three, books have become integral parts of our growing up.

My mother was a very persistent and patient woman - not giving up when we give up on learning how to read and understand difficult books. In fact, we started reading difficult books first than study children's books most parents would recommend their young children. My mother did not go to college as she married my father at a young age. We did not know where she learned how to teach. All we know was that, we started learning the alphabet at the age of two or three. Then, she would move on teaching us how to read words, shorter ones, and longer ones after, then phrases, then sentences.

There were times when you have to read aloud passages from the American Constitution or Modern History of America as she listened attentively, observing closely if you were making a mistake on the enunciation of each word, and if you did, she would ask you to start from the very beginning. It didn't really matter at first whether we understand a word we were reading or not, what was noteworthy was that we knew how to read simple to complex words.I realized later that my mother prepared us to learn independently.

She explained that if you knew how to read words, you would know their meanings by searching for those words in the dictionary. My other relatives would give us a thick dictionary for Christmas as presents because of my mother's constant request for them to do so. As a result, the dictionary had always been our constant companion. Later on, all of us were able to scan and search for the definition of words as fast as we could.My parents bestowed us so much freedom to choose our own individual paths to learning.

As the left wing of our house was turned into a library, we were given freedom to choose which books to read and our parents would never dictate on us which book to choose. If we made the wrong choice of book, it was our responsibility to pick and choose a better one next time.Much of my childhood was spent in the left wing of the house. The dingy rooms surrounded by cabinets and shelves reeked with the smell of old paper, ink and gaseous odor emanating from the damp newspapers, oak wood and leaves - but it represents a whole world to me.

The cabinets and shelves were shrouded in dusts and soot but it didn't hinder me