"Chrysanthemum" used to be one of my favorite books. Since my name is spelled a little different, people would pronounce it wrong or "make fun" of it. This book was so encouraging to me because in the end Chrysanthemum realizes that her name is unique just like she is! After reading this book, I realized that my name is unique and I love it now. This book encouraged me in my literacy by encouraging me sound out challenging words in literature. This book has a mixture of short and long words like "Chrysanthemum".

I used to read this book, "The Monster at the end of this Book", at my granny's house when I was little. I used to love looking at the craziness of the pictures along with the exclamation points and excitement in the sentences. I learned how to look at the graphics and punctuation in order to read the excitement on the page.

The Bible is a book that I hold very close to my heart. I grew up in a Christian home with multiple copies of the Bible laying around the house. My mom and dad would read me verses and I would also be read the Bible in Sunday School at my church where I would follow along as they read. Listening to others read the Bible and following along helped me in my literacy by teaching me to listen to the verses of scripture and be able to follow along by reading in my head as well.

"The Ranch" is a book my granny used to read when I spent the night at her house with my cousins. She read this book so many times. After hearing the book multiple times, when I would pull out that book for her to read I was also able to read it by myself because I knew it so well. I would remember certain words she read so then I was able to remember and sound the words out to read.

"You Are Special" by Max Lucado has always been my mom's favorite book. She would always recommended it to me when I would read and would always love to read it to me. This book helped me a lot in learning to read because it was one of the first long paragraph children's book I read. This book provides pictures and long paragraphs that challenged me as a reader also taught me to be confident and committed in my reading.

"Love You Forever" is another book my mom used to read to me. I remember this book having a part that somewhat repeats itself. As a child listening to this book, it taught me to listen for repetition in books. Repetition in this book helped me learn to read stanzas or parts of literature that repeats multiple times.

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?", is a book I remember reading in elementary school. This book lists a number of different animals and pictures to go with the description. For example, "I see a red bird"is the description and then a picture of a red bird would be on the page as well. This taught me how to read and know my colors as well as how to connect them to their picture that follows the description.

"Are You My Mother" is a book I recently got to read aloud to my little sister a couple of weekends ago when I went home. I was able to practice reading to her which helped me in my literacy. I practiced reading out loud in an enthusiastic way to keep her engaged.