KAPPA IV Memoir - Mr. Almanzar

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The day that I felt good about myself 

By: Freddy

In fifth grade there was a program that started on October 18, 2006. It was a program named Accelerated Reader. It was a program to help people with reading. The first time I tried it, it read a chapter book and I got an 80. I was the first one to read a chapter book and score an 80. The teacher was proud of me and she knew that I could read a lot of books. We made a bet that if I could read 45 books, I would win a trophy.

The second book that I read was 220 pages. I scored a 90. In the middle of the school year there was a contest and I was in it because my teacher put me in it. I was up against two of my friends. The contest went on and on. There was only two left. It was me and my friend. We had to read one more chapter book. If we did, we would both win the trophy. At almost the end of the competition, my friend made a mistake and put the wrong answer and he scored a low 60. I scored 100. I won the trophy and three books. My friend won a second place trophy. Everyone was proud of me. Reading was the only thing that I was good at. The rest of the school subjects were too hard. Only reading was fun. My teacher made it fun. One contest that my whole class had, we got to read lots of books. We needed to get 90 or a 100 on the scores. There were only three classes that had lots of books read. We read 150 books and got a 100. We won the contest. We had our pictures taken together and the president of the Accelerated Reader company came. My teacher made a speech that almost made the president cry. We won a $200 certificate. First we spent some of the money on a pizza party, then on books, and then on ice-cream.

With the prize money, we went to Borders to buy books. As I was looking for books, the teacher who helped me accomplish the task of being a better reader helped me look for a book about a kid who became a good reader like me. That is when it all hit me. I helped make it happen. I could not believe that I helped make this happen. All of my 100’s and 90’s helped us win the money. It was the best that I had ever done in any other subject. It was better because I had a teacher who worked with me for four years. She helped me learn reading skills. She showed me how to underline and review words that I did not understand. She was special to me and I made her so proud of me at this time. She had never seen me do well before. Now I was shining and it was all because of her. I was so happy because I was part of this great event. But I was also sad because I knew I was leaving to another school.

I had never felt this before. It was clear to me that if you keep trying you will be good at it. Never quit. Always review everything. You can get 100s if you just keep trying to make yourself better at reading.