Reading

I hope that anyone who started school last week had a good week (or as good as it could be). I've just started my 10th year of school, which in Australia, is the 3rd year of high school. (back to school posts can be found here)

The other day I was sitting in my English class, listening to my teacher talk about reading and how important it is that everyone is reading. It got me thinking, and although I might not have listened to the rest of her speech about reading, I was thinking about how important it is in my life. If you'd like to see some of the things I've been reading, check out these posts.

You think you don't read much?
A lot of people my age say they hate reading, or never read. But that is not true. You read everyday. Just think about it for a minute. You are reading this right now. But you also read when you turn on your phone to check social media, or when you get a text. You absentmindedly read all the signs and advertisements around you. Reading is such an important and significant part of your life, and you don't even realise it.

Think for a second, back to before you started school and learnt to read. Do you remember what it was like? I don't. But I can image it would be like being in a foreign country, where they speak a language that you don't understand- perhaps one with different letters or characters. So many people don't realise how much of an impact reading has on their lives, but it is just as important or significant, perhaps even more than numbers. But even then don't you read numbers too?

Why should you start reading?

Anyway, the main reason I am writing this post is because reading is such a huge part of my life, and I want to share that with you, and if reading isn't a big part of your life- I hope that I can inspire you to give it a go.

Reading a wide variety of things (from newspapers to blogs, novels to magazines) improves you vocabulary dramatically. You learn many different words, and the context they are used in, and this will translate and be evident in any writing that you do, and even in your everyday conversations.

Reading is also the best way to improve your spelling, which once again translates into your writing. (and when you have in class tests, it is reasonably valuable to know how to spell all those amazing words you hear.)

Why is reading such a big part of my life?

To be honest I don't really know. But I have always read, since I was little I have read for a while each night before I got to sleep, it is just normal in my family.
And I really enjoy it, it is something I can spend hours doing on the weekend or in the holidays, and generally speaking I never really find it boring.

Reading is a way of escaping, it gives us somewhere to go when we have to stay where we are. Through reading you can visit thousands of different worlds, without having to travel for even a minute.

Why is reading disappearing?

Most people don't read for fun. They don't enjoy, or have never tried, picking out the book at the shop and spending hours transported into another world. Personally, I believe that this is because we are so caught up with other things, and everyone is so busy. All the time that used to be spent reading is now taken up by social media or browsing the internet. I'm 100% not saying that you shouldn't still use the internet and social media. I just think that it is important that we still find time to do other things (like reading).

Another possible reason for how unpopular reading has become, could be schools. At the moment, we are constantly being told that we should be reading and we need to read everyday. And one way that is almost certain to make someone less likely or motivated to do something is to tell them they have to. By making 15 minutes of reading each night compulsory, or forcing books onto people, schools may just we working in the wrong direction.

One of my least favourite parts of school is having to read novels in class. The main reason for this being, that I find them boring. They always seem to choose the least interesting books for us to read in class, and really that is not going to help encourage anyone to start reading.  (and this paragraph is the actual reason I wrote this post)

Tying it up
It really frustrates me how people make it so loud when they hate or don't like something. Reading is something I really like, and I am perfectly fine if you don't want to read or have no interest in it. But I hope that you have read this and are aware of what you are missing out on by choosing not to read.

qotp: do you like reading? why?