I think I learned a lot while growing up about how proper English is written/spoken just from reading a lot of the author's who are in the Public Domain in a lot of countries. I never could quite get the grasp of things like participles and gerunds much less put them on the right part of a diagram, but I learned how writing was supposed to be written by reading books. Of course when I was in 1st grade they still used the Dick and Jane books. i.e. See Dick. See Jane. See Dick and Jane. See Spot. See Dick, Jane, & Spot. etc. but reading helped expand my vocabulary quite a bit growing up. When I was 13 I had some testing done and I already had a High School Senior's reading level. I put it all down to the joy of reading that I developed at an early age thanks to my mom who gave me my 1st library card when I was 3 and helped me read those early books. I'm sure I drove her crazy with Dr. Seuss. lol.
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