What makes a person literate? What is literacy for you? Is it through reading a bunch of books? OR…. Is it a product of our school? Learning that after the letter A there is the letter B, after B there is C and so on… or discovering that this word is a verb and the other is a noun; and that this sentence is grammatically correct and the other is not. Attending preschool, kindergarten, and then high school to get a diploma, then earning a college degree. Literacy cannot just be a product of education or the books we read. Can? No. Literacy is a journey. A journey that touches every aspect of our lives. Where we come from, what we have done and who we are in contact with. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay My name is Noora and this is my personal literacy narrative. Like most people, my literacy skills grew on me at an early age. It all started when I was born. I can't remember many things in detail, but I know I was brought to a point where I would soon have to remember things. Things like recognizing faces, like those of my parents, my siblings, and the rest of my family. A place where I had to remember things like home. My first contact with books were the children's books that my sister read to me and asked me questions about. Questions like “which is a tree?”, he then asked me to point to the picture. My first two words to say were “daya” and “baba” (mom and dad in Kurdish). I called everyone who took care of me and fed me daya and baba, until I realized that I only had one daya and one baba. When I was about three years old, my sister read me fairy tales and princess stories. I was obsessed with it. I wanted to be a princess. He showed me the different characters in the book. I was amazed at how beautiful they were. I started learning colors and remembering what color their clothes and hair were. Then I reached the age where I could talk and ask questions, for example: “what is this?”, “why is this...?”, “why?”. I started learning about new objects and was able to identify things. My mother then took me to kindergarten. This was the first time I saw the school. I was so excited. I felt like I wasn't a child anymore. I was like my older sisters who were in high school at the time; finally grown up and old enough to go to school! I started looking at books on my own and trying to identify the letters I saw. I learned to make friends and communicate with my peers. I began to know which actions are right and which are wrong. This was the foundation of my academic and social skills. I then started memorizing my favorite songs and singing them in my room. I opened my closet, chose a dress and wore my dress without the crown. I danced around my room and imagined the life of a princess. But this joy and excitement did not last long. My family decided to move to Dubai, a city in the Middle East. They took me to school and put me in first grade. I really hated it. The rest of the children in my class spoke Arabic. It was incredibly difficult for me, a very sociable and active boy, to sit in a classroom without knowing a word of Arabic. My first contact with Arabic literacy was during my Arabic learning course. There were me and five other foreign students who spoke French. They constantly spoke French to each other. So not only was I alienated from my Arab classmates, but also from my classmates.