"Therefore Comma"

When I was going into sixth grade, our school bought a new type of reading curriculum. Each of us had to go through a series of tests to see where we would be placed. They had three different levels for each grade, and some of the levels overlapped with grades above us and below us. My sixth grade class was split into three different reading groups. My tests went very well... except for one... Reading Out-loud. My score was terrible on this. For some reason, when I would read out-loud, I would mess up so many words. I would glance ahead to see what happens next, and then I would loose my place and get frustrated, this frustration would cause me to switch words around, drop them out, or add completely new words. As my frustration increased, it became more and more difficult for me to read. It was very embarrassing. I would always get called on to read because I was a "nerdy smart person", and I would always be so embarrassed that I couldn't read eloquently like the rest of the nerds. My teachers could never understand it. I was proficient in all other places except for this. If I was reading in my head, I could read books that were two or three years above my "level" and my scores on those tests were nearly perfect. But because of my inability to read out-loud fluently, I was put in the lowest level in my grade. In fact, when I was in sixth grade and Rudy was in fourth grade, we were taking the same reading class. He was ahead, and I was behind. It really frustrated me because if you were in the lowest level reading class, you had to stay in that level for Language Arts and Spelling as well. I hated sitting through those classes. It is so frustrating when you know the answer by heart and someone else doesn't get it at all so the teacher has to keep revisiting the subject. (If you have been around me enough, you know that I cannot say the words "therefore or however" without saying the word "comma" after it. This is because in my language class people would forget to write the comma, so when we were speaking out-loud my teacher would make us say the word "comma". Unfortunately, that stuck with me, and I can't seem to break that habit. It's not necessarily a bad habit, it is just annoying to other people.) I was so frustrated. The summer between sixth and seventh grade, I decided that I was not going to be in that lower level class, so I worked really hard on reading out-loud. I read everything out-loud: signs, books, magazines, the TV, anything and everything. (This is also another habit that I formed.) I had a lot of down time that summer after my four wheeler wreck that ended in a broken arm, so I would go to the library every other day to get new books. When we went to take the tests the first week of school my seventh grade year, I passed out of the lowest level! I was so happy. I still to this day, cringe a little when I am asked to read out-loud, I still don't feel as if I can read eloquently, but it is WAY better than it was when I was in elementary school. It's amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.