Why is Reading Important?[From this article by Cassandra James]
Words are our everyday tools. You use words in everything. You speak thousands of words every day. Most people write something every day. A letter, a resume, an article, a note, even two lines on a post-it - they all require words. If you read, words will come easier to you simply because of the vocabulary you will have. People who read are known to have larger vocabularies and usually find it much easier to compose a written piece or give a speech. Vocabulary. Many of today's teenagers think vocabulary isn't important. 'Cool', 'hot', 'fierce', 'rad' - they think this vocabulary is all they need. Try interviewing for a job that pays more than a supermarket checkout position, and see how far using 'fierce' will get you in a job interview. What you say puts a vision in the other person's mind of who you are. If you can express yourself eloquently, the person hearing you has already decided you are intelligent. In most situations in life, intelligence will get you where you want to go. Sounding intelligent helps you on your path to that goal. Information. Reading gives you information. Everything you will ever need to know is available in a book somewhere. It's available on the internet, or in a newspaper. If you love reading, you will find that getting information is easy for you. In any job, if you know how to find the information you need, you are miles ahead of your competition. Remember the old adage "Knowledge is power?" The people who are often the most successful have knowledge, and other people pay them for that knowledge. Reading will give you any knowledge you could ever need for any situation. Imagination. Reading feeds your imagination. When I sit down with a book, I am instantly lost in the world the author created. It doesn't matter if I'm stuck in a doctor's waiting room for two hours, on a boring bus ride, or standing in line at the bank - I always have a book with me. In any boring everyday situation I can be immediately transformed into a different place just by the power of a book. My time is never wasted because, if somebody else makes me wait, I simply use that time to read. Then what I learn from reading is put to use in the rest of my life. As an only child, I spent thousands of hours reading. Consequently, I have never been bored, I can always amuse myself and my imagination works overtime thinking of all the places I've been and the people I've seen in books. Inspiration. I write, I paint, and I teach. Books have given me the tools and the power to do all of these things well. When I write an article for Associated Content, my inspiration has often come from a line I've read in a book. My paintings come from images I've seen in my head from a novel I've read. When I teach, I teach my students with knowledge that has been in my head for decades. Even I don't know where I pulled these 'useless bits of information' from, but my students love it as I can usually tell them about most things they're interested in. Inspiration for everything I do in life comes from my love of books. |
How to be a Better ReaderDo your research.
If you're reading a book or article about a topic that's new to you, or that you don't fully understand, use the internet to get some background knowledge. Just knowing a little bit more about the topic beforehand will help you connect with the text more easily. Read Out Loud. Sometimes, a difficult text makes more sense if you hear it. Additionally, reading out loud forces you not to skip over any words like we sometimes do when we read to ourselves. If you're struggling with a text, read a section of it out loud and see if it makes more sense to you. Use Post-It Notes. If you think something is important, or if you have a question about something, mark it with a post-it note. This will help you easily find your place when you want to bring up what you've read in class discussion, or if you want to ask a friend or your teacher about something you didn't fully understand. Learn New Vocabulary. As you read, you're going to encounter new words. Challenge yourself not only to learn the meaning of those words, but to incorporate them into your speech. In doing so, you will be better prepared to tackle more difficult words as they come your way. Reread. You know how on television shows and in movies, just before the big mystery is about to be solved, they go back and show you all the clues you might have missed along the way? This is true in books, too! Flipping back and rereading sections will often give you a better perspective and understanding of characters and events in the story. |