A book can transport you into another world, be it the wizard realm of “Harry Potter” or the legal intrigue of the latest John Grisham. Some people are sucked in by stories more than others. While some readers can actually picture what they read, others may not.
Why we should be concerned about how young people read, and not just whether they’re reading at all, it helps to know something about the way the ability to read evolved. “Human beings were never born to read,” notes Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University and author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. Unlike the ability to understand and produce spoken language, which under normal circumstances will unfold according to a program dictated by our genes, the ability to read must be painstakingly acquired by each individual. The “reading circuits” we construct are recruited from structures in the brain that evolved for other purposes — and these circuits can be feeble or they can be robust, depending on how often and how vigorously we use them.
There are ten reasons why we must help our kids love reading: First, the kids have to love reading to become excellent readers. Only if they love reading, they will spend lots of time reading. Second, avid readers acquire a more complex sense of language. They speak better, write better, and deal better with complex ideas. Third, reading gives children wide-ranging frames of reference, which make all learning easier. Even children who read only fiction will pick up facts about history, geography, politics, and science. Fourth, by high school, only avid readers will have the literacy skills to excel in any course that demands a good deal of reading. They are the kids in the honors classes, the kids who score high on the SAT exam, the kids who have a shot at attending top colleges. Fifth, excellent reading skills makes it more likely kids will weather personal trauma with their academic credentials intact, since they will be able to keep up with their schoolwork by using only a fraction of their time and emotional energy. In contrast, a personal crisis will usually wipe out a poor reader. Sixth, avid reading gives kids a sense of perspective. After seeing life described through the eyes of hundreds of different narrators, they see that there are many ways to look at situations. Seventh, reading helps children to be compassionate. The essence of compassion is the ability to understand another’s viewpoint. Reading brings children into thousands of different lives, allowing them to understand these lives in all their complexity. Eight, avid readers are exposed to a world full of possibilities and opportunities. They can dream anything. Ninth, avid reading develops critical-thinking skills. Avid readers learn to follow complex arguments and remember multifaceted plots. Tenth, a love of reading is one of the major joys of life. Huddled in a deep chair by the fire with a terrifying thriller; lounging on the beach, laughing at a comic novel; falling asleep over a gentle romance: without these pleasures, life is a little darker and drabber.
Here are the top ten tips, so your children will love to read:
- Resolve that a love of reading will be your most important educational goal for your children.
- Show you value reading rather than tell your children you value it.
- Don’t worry about scheduling time for your children to read. If they love reading, they’ll find time.
- Don’t worry about making your children read only “good” books.
- Search out books your children will like.
- Don’t worry that books containing violence will produce violent kids.
- Make sure that your children can someday enjoy classics by not pushing them too early.
- Don’t worry if your kids have periods in their lives when they don’t avidly read.
- If you have older children who already dislike reading, don’t blame yourself.
- Never give up on your children. No matter how old they are, they can be brought to a love of books.
Surrounding an early age child with books is a wise thing, Mom! It can help you make your child become a book lover who loves to read, always develop imagination, and have the courage to look for answers of their billions of questions about themselves and the world.
With passion we pray. With passion we make love. With passion, we eat and drink and dance and play. Why look like a dead fish in this ocean of God?—Jalaludin Rumi.
Source: Leonhardt, M. 1997. 99 Ways to Get Kids to Love Reading: And 100 Books They’ll Love. Three Rivers Press, New York: 124 hlm; http://www.livescience.com/7831-lost-books.html; http://ideas.time.com/2013/06/03/why-we-should-read-literature/.
Editor: Oliver Nicholas Phoa
