Free Essay On A Discussion Of The Subjects In Which I Had Difficulties, Possible Contributory Factors And How I Have Dealt With Them

Even though I was born in Baltimore, I was bred and brought up in Puerto Rico since I was five. My family and I just moved to Florida two years ago while I was a high school junior. It was therefore such a difficult transition not only as a high school student but also as a 16-year-old who lived almost all her life or a better part of it in a Spanish culture and went to the same school since the age of five. I am convinced it is this difficult social family background that contributed to the difficulties I had in various subjects I will describe in the subsequent sections of my story.
I have had problems in both Math and English ever since I was in middle school. One of the factors that contributed to the difficulties I faced in Math was the fact that I tend to confuse between the positive and negative mathematical signs in math problems. Moreover, the bad experience I had with my fourth grade math teacher also led to my difficulties in the subject. This is because every time I did something wrong, she would scold and scream at me, making me to generally fear the math class. It made me lose morale and interest in the subject.
In an effort to deal with the problems I had in math, I began going for tutoring in order to help improve my understanding of the class. Furthermore, I ensured that I spent a better part of my time throughout the 9th grade in the math lab. This helped me to improve my grade considerably. Also, to bolster these efforts, my mother enrolled me at Sylvan Learning Center during my junior school in a bid to further improve on my math performance. Here, I was able to regain confidence in my math skills and abilities.
As for English, I had trouble mastering the subject because it is not my first language and hence I would often confuse some English words with others in Spanish. Besides, the fact that I was taught how to spell with the sound of the word and not how they were actually spelt contributed to my difficulties in English subject. As a consequence, this greatly affected my grade in the class. As an improvement measure for English, I began reading more books so that I could expand my English vocabulary scope and also spelling. Reading has helped me to improve my grammar and writing skills.