Reading is good for our health.
Reading is good for society.
Reading is good for positive living.
There is no excuse in today's high tech world not to make time for reading, yet many of us do that. Instead of a healthy diet of regular reading, too many of us get distracted by all the choices available to us. What can we do to change that?
That's a question I'm asking myself right now. I love to read short articles, visit social media, contemplate all kinds of subjects, talk with friends, but I don't have a good enough dedication to regular reading and I want to change that.
Everytime I read a good book, I am reminded once again of the value of making the time to read. Reading provides us with good information, enriches our imagination and introduces us to new ideas, varied lifestyles and new places too. Further, reading gives us the language we need to discuss our world, the way we feel, our ideas and our needs. Reading takes us beyond the too-superficial and often incomplete and sometimes erroneous descriptions of people and places. Reading takes us into the valuable details related to people, places, ideas and events, and these details are important because they help us to see and understand with specificity.
There's a movement alive in America to dumb us down with lots of misinformation, propaganda, lies, exaggeration, oversimplification and opinion rather than facts related to science and other fact-based study. The only way to combat this will to dumb down the population is to read, read, read.
How can we do that?
First, we can make good time for reading in every home. Carve out time each day to read.
Next, we can identify the subjects we want to learn about and the genre we wish to read for enjoyment. Then we can access books in a myriad of ways including online and handheld books available via our tech devices, local libraries, book stores and more.
Then we can read--read on our own, read together, read with book clubs and read to the young children in our lives.
Classrooms everywhere can shorten prep time and add to substance by making significant time each day for students to read on their own, together and as a class. Too often as educators we concentrate on crafty lessons rather than the needed time for reading. Whole schools can uplift reading by applying all-hands-on-deck reading hours where children are matched in small groups to caring adults who lead book groups. The children with the greatest reading challenges get the most skilled adult book group leaders while advanced readers are matched with teaching generalists and assistant educators. The goal is to get everyone reading for at least one hour a day. Added to that is the daily read aloud and discussion and more time to read books related to specific curriculum topics and concepts.
Reading today means connecting with the written word and there are countless ways to do that. Children should experience all the ways to read including audio books, book videos, foreign films with text, books online, handheld books, graphic novels, informational texts, fiction stories, biographies, autobiographies, poetry, essays and more.
If America embraces a greater focus on reading, we will help our entire country to develop in optimal ways. We can do this.