“When you can read, you can become anything you want” (Umesh) is what I believed as a child, spoken by 3rd grader Umesh, in Nepal. When I was younger, my father read the same book to me every night: Smelly Socks by Robert N. Munsch. Smelly Socks was about a young girl that purchased a new pair of red, yellow, and green socks. Falling in love with the socks, the girl refused to let her mother wash them. This caused a ruckus with her classmates; consequently, leading them to throw her in the river to clean her socks themselves. I can relate to this due to the fact that I too had a special pair of socks in my life; in fact, my father shut my thoughts down quick. In conclusion, as a child, I could believe anything. Thus, aiding my imagination to …show more content…
The possibilities are endless with the information available: encyclopedias, articles, books, magazines. Moreover, a reason I read, is for a source of enjoyment and entertainment. Every now and then I find a book that I can not take my eyes off of; freshman year I found a book that I loved so much, that I read all 300 pages in a matter of a day! Furthermore, reading may enhance vocabulary, advance writing skills, and improve analytical thinking. As author, Lana Winter-Hebert wrote, “should you ever find yourself in dire circumstances, remember that although you might lose everything else—your job, your possessions, your money, even your health—knowledge can never be taken from you” (Winter-Hebert). On the other hand, there are various of other thoughts about reading.
Nevertheless, reading can cause problems in life too. In relative, I began a story that was appealing to the eye. As I continued reading, I noticed a change in mood. Drifting out of focus, I was forced to reread sections of multiple pages; eventually, leading to my decision that reading is not my strong suit. For instance, it is evident that listening to the information is just as effective as it is to read it. While surveying my father, he spoke with confidence; meanwhile, I was still shaky about my decision. This is just one of the copious reasons people do not enjoy
When you read, especially fiction, you experience a broad sweep of human life. You gain access to the thoughts of others, look at history through another person’s eyes and learn from their mistakes, something that you otherwise would not be able to experience.
Reading is on the decline and our reading skills are declining right along with the amount of reading we do. This is happening right across the board through both genders, all age groups and education levels, people are busy and they just do not have time to read books that they are not required to read for school or work. There are serious consequences to this neglect of reading that will continue to worsen if ignored. We need to take notice of what is happening to our culture and stop this situation from continuing, we must act to correct these issues that we are faced with. These things are discussed in the essay “Staying Awake’’ by Ursula K. Le Guin who uses the NEA essays “To Read or Not to Read’’ and “Reading at Risk’’ to support her argument that there is a decline in the amount of time that we are spending on reading and our ability to understand what it is that we are reading.
In “Reading and Thought” editor Dwight MacDonald emphasizes that everything we read on a daily basis is worthless. MacDonald defines functional curiosity as a habit of reading rather than giving valuable information. MacDonald also alternates that people read too much material in a limited time frame; which results in hollow reading and thinking. Although, MacDonald encourages us to read more to become brilliant, I partially disagree with MacDonald’s argument because we waste time reading unimportant material, do not have time to reread and understand the material and we can now read our books electronically.
Andrew Solomon has some valid arguments in his article, and he tries to persuade the readers through logos, pathos, and ethos. Solomon wants the readers to understand the importance of reading, and how its decline can be harmful to the nation. To reinforce his arguments, Solomon shares a variety of examples, for instance, he mentions that reading helps improve memory and concentration, and the decline of reading is causing mental “atrophy.” He also calls upon the readers to take some sort of action to raise reading rates and help the society. This can grant the readers a form of power and control over the crisis that will lead to an em...
For me, reading as well as rereading, books such as Junie B Jones, Berenstain Bears, or the Harry Potter series, impacted my life immensely by increasing my vocabulary, developing my vital language skills and many more developmental skills. In the past, being literate meant beating kids in how many books I could read and being able to comprehend difficult vocabulary, but now being literate in the adult world means developing new and creative ideas or being able to prosper an opinion based on facts and previous knowledge.
Growing up in working class family, my mom worked all the time for the living of a big family with five kids, and my dad was in re-education camp because of his association with U.S. government before 1975. My grandma was my primary guardian. “Go to study, go to read your books, read anything you like to read if you want to have a better life,” my grandma kept bouncing that phrase in my childhood. It becomes the sole rule for me to have better future. I become curious and wonder what the inside of reading and write can make my life difference. In my old days, there was no computer, no laptop, no phone…etc, to play or to spend time with, other than books. I had no other choice than read, and read and tended to dig deep in science books, math books, and chemistry books. I tended to interest in how the problem was solved. I even used my saving money to buy my own math books to read more problems and how to solve the problem. I remembered that I ended up reading the same math book as my seventh grade teacher. She used to throw the challenge questions on every quiz to pick out the brighter student. There was few students know how to solve those challenge questions. I was the one who fortunately nailed it every single time. My passion and my logic for reading and writing came to me through that experience, and also through my grandma and my mom who plant the seed in me, who want their kids to have happy and better life than they were. In my own dictionary, literacy is not just the ability to read and write, it is a strong foundation to build up the knowledge to have better life, to become who I am today.
Constantly, students are told that reading is important and is “good” for them, but has anyone ever explained why reading is important? What does reading do except for improve our reading skills? As a small child, we learn the alphabet then we learn to read and from that point on, we just continue to improve to read. A common known idea, is that reading can improve our knowledge and critical skills throughout our schooling years, but studies have also shown that reading fiction can improve empathy, awareness and even our social skills. Many argue, however, that many who read already have their empathy skills and never actually gain any empathy skills when reading which would mean that reading does not improve social skills. Another argument
Sitting down to your favorite romance or murder mystery novel does more for you then entertain. Enjoying the best chapter helps with brain connectivity, focus, and language comprehension. Reading anything helps your brain in some way. Whether you are just skimming or are super engaged in the book, your mind is working to improve. Getting involved in a good book can be better for you then you think. Finding something that peaks your interest can be difficult but it serves a good purpose in the end.
From the beginning of my journey of literature, reading and writing, I have never really enjoyed any of them. I know three languages fluently and reading the same text in different languages gives me a different impressions due to different cultural aspects which I found highly interesting, but unfortunately that’s not the case for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love to hear stories read to me, but I never liked reading even the books I found interesting. I only read if I have to for things such as school 's summer readings. Thus, my mom always read aloud every book that I found interesting. Whenever I start reading a book, my vision gets blurry, my head starts to hurt, and it’s really easy for me to get distracted and that quickly fades away my
Literacy also helps you to understand the meaning behind something, and be able to either read, or ask to further determine the meaning of something. For example, when I was a little kid, my family and I visited Paris and saw the Mona Lisa. I stared at the art work and didn 't get anything from it besides a woman, until I read some excerpts about it and asked a guide to further my understanding and gather the meaning; without being literate I would have never concluded the meaning behind the Mona Lisa and never understood why it was such a
Reading books help people to develop their knowledge and their personality by reading fast, slow, or in various topics of books. Like Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Thomas Edison, people can become ingenious after reading the Classics and the Humanities, by reading either fast, slow, or a wide variety of books, and will have several benefit to him/her by reducing stress, becoming smarter, and to exercise his/her brain. Reading should make people to impact and change the world into a better place. That’s why we should read a lot of books especially when we are young. What kind of a person are you going to be? A person who changes the world like Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Thomas Edison? Or just a common person? Are you going to read?
Nowadays, many people think reading is not necessary, since there are so many sources of information and types of entertainment, such as TV, cinema and the Internet. I believe they are wrong because reading is very beneficial in many ways.
In my opinion the main reasons to study literature is to further our mastery of the language, to exercise our brains, as well as to know we are not alone. I think that literature not only further our education by building our vocabulary, increasing our reading abilities, and over all improving our understanding of literature. Not only does literature increase your knowledge, it exercises your brain. Literature is very important in our society because if you cannot read or write you aren’t going to make it very far in life. Literature can make you feel things that people cannot, such as while reading a book the descriptions can be so vivid that you might even feel like you are there, and part of the story. The power of literature is incredible. Lastly, when you read a book or story it can make you feel like you are there, and you will build a connection with that piece of literature, making you feel like you are not alone because you will always have your books to turn to, even if your friends have left you.
One positive element of reading is that it gives children the opportunity to develop their thoughts on books, which strengthens their cognitive development and encourages deeper thoughts.
In the contemporary era, if you don’t have any desire or need for information, there will be no good future for you. Life is very much pre-determined. Books not only increase your intellect but also influence your reading and writing skills. Books can be read again and again as they are the most credible and precious media of mass communication.