Jacquline Salley

I use to be just like every other normal teenager when it came to reading. Always trying to take the easy way out, making up excuses to why my work wasn’t done, and always putting reading off to the side. In high school I only gave enough effort to get a passing grade; however, that did not work for my college classes. I decided that it was in my best interest to apply the: Reading Secrets Formula, Reading tools, and The Reading Process learned from my FLIRT Your Way to an A+ book to my classes. When I graduate from college I will be a licensed psychologist for children; therefore, I’m required to do a lot of outside reading, and cognitive thinking. In my reading journey I had to learn how to make myself love reading, as Mrs. Wise would say, “ Fake it to you make it.” So that I can become the person that I want to be, and do the things that I want to do with my life. If it wasn’t for FLIRT Your Way to an A+ book, I don’t think I would be able to accomplish anything, because I would still have my old ways.

In high school it was okay for me to not do my best, as long as at the end of the year I was passing on to the next grade. I put anything that required outside reading to the side, because I just couldn’t get myself interested with the text. I turned everything in on time; however, doing major projects and essay’s the day before its due is not necessarily a good thing. Everything was rushed so I made stupid mistakes and was deducted major points. When I started college, I started to apply the same amount of effort that I did in high school. After my first couple of tests, I quickly realized that my ways wasn’t going to work. Getting the grades that I did, I honestly felt like I failed life itself. I had to make a choice about just giving up and dropping out of school, or forcing myself to read the required text. And in the beginning I struggled a lot because there was just so much information to grasps that, my mind wasn’t retaining anything.

I purchased the FLIRT Your Way to an A+ book and decided to give it a chance. Learning the information in class also help with my reading journey. I learned that I was an auditory/visual learner, and some examples of how I could study like: highlighting, talking back to the text, and using post it notes. I also learned how to make reading fun, how to connect old and new information, and how to fit reading it with my schedule. Once I learned how to apply the six reading secrets, remove distractions, seta a purpose, adjust your pace, take notes, stop when confused and setting aside time to read; reading started to get easier for me. The Reading Process is what really set everything off in a good mood. Flirt, Drive, Relax made it so easy for me to read, to the point where I have to read every day. If I don’t read I feel like there something missing from my day. The change in my reading behavior didn’t drastically happen overnight, there was a lot of practicing and using the methods and tools learned.

One class that I wasn’t doing so well in was my Psychology class, which is my major. It was very important for me to do well in this class because being a psychologist is what I wanted to do in my life. Helping people succeed in life is a major deal for me. As a psychologist I have to do a lot of outside reading and cognitive thinking so that I will be able to diagnose my patients correctly. I have to read a lot of mental health journals, and a lot of medicine journals. So I absolutely cannot put off reading once I start my career. Since I started applying the information I learned too my psychology class my grades have gone above and beyond 100%, and now since I know how to connect with the text, I know that I will give above and beyond 100% in my career. Even if one day I come across a book that I have to read and I do not really like the book, I know how to fake it until I make it.

Overall I would like to give thanks to Mrs. Wise for writing the FLIRT Your Way to an A+ book and then teaching her class how to use the book. Reading has become fun and easy for me to do. I honestly see a change in my personality and know that I will do great in my career. I have become very confident with reading, and then I am able to explain what I read. My reading journey is nowhere near over, but I will always remember where my start was. One day when I’m a millionaire I’m going to reflect back on life and highly recommend what I learned in from Mrs. Wise to the world.