I did not do any reading at home as a young child. About first to fifth grade, I did do some reading which consisted basically of memorising texts with no understanding of the story. Between the sixth and the twelfth grade, we were introduced to literary works of art. We had to do English as well as African Literature.We had to read Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, and some African Literature from Nigerian authors like Chinua Achebe and many others. The latter were quite interesting probably because of some familiarity with the settings and the language. These were basically for academic purposes and not for fun. It was hard for me at the time to decipher the purpose of the texts, or the author's intention or even memorising important quotations from the texts for examinations. However, watching plays based on these works made the reading easier.
After writing a paper in the eigth grade following a reading assignment, my instructor said to me, "your grammar is correct. Your vocabulary is correct, but you lack creativity. You have to be imaginative". I did not understand what the intructor wanted, nor did I get any help jogging my brains to be creative, to paint a vivid picture of the reading exercise. I lost interest.
I have been reading novels for fun, but other books which are loaded with dates and names and activit ies like History books were probably the most difficult in school.
