Learning how to read - Why reading is so important.

• When the State of Arizona projects how many prison beds it will need, it factors in the number of kids who read well in fourth grade.
• 50 percent of American adults are unable to read an eighth grade level book.
• 46% of American adults cannot understand the label on their prescription medicine.
• Click here to read the Reference

“The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.” Elizabeth Hardwick

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.” Emily Dickinson

"To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries." Prof. A.C. Grayling

I remember a time when reading wasnt important to me. It was when I was a kid. It's not that it didnt interest me but to be honest I just couldnt focus. And for me that lack of focus lead to an inability to learn. I struggled in school and it lead to many frustrations. Even relational frustrations.

There seemed to be a release as I grew older and I began to love to read. My mind cleared and I began to love to write. As these two passions grew I began to love to learn. Reading to me is so intertwined to who I am as a person that it's hard for me to phathom not reading. It's such a natural part of who I have become to be.

Its become a passion, a pleasure, a trusted friend. It's become my greatest tool for learning and sometimes its what I do all day. Reading is that important to me.

Each year I have a personal goal to read a certain number of books. Some years I shoot for the stars, and land on the moon. This year I'm shooting for a very attainable goal for me - I have made a solid goal of 24 books this year. This goal is beyond the books I read for work, or the research I do. This goal is to read 24 books, for pleasure and of my choice by the end of 2011. I'm also using many different tools to accomplish this goal. The apps on my phone for instance are a huge part of my life. So this year I'm being much more intentional to incorporate reading apps into my goal. I've used them before, but this year I'm stepping it up a level.

It can be overwhelming to pick the books you desire to read in a given year. You can start by making a list of your interests, or you can google a list that's already been made like the one found here on wikipedia "best" selling books to date. Whichever way you choose to do it make sure you set yourself up for success. You know what you can do, you know the business of your life - so if you've never made it a goal before try 1 book a month. If you finish that easily build as the year progresses. Give yourself some playing margin but make it a priority to read.

It's always been a great joy to read to my children. Each girl has had a different reaction to reading and has been influenced differently. These reading times have always been a highlight of bedtime and we've watched the joy of reading get passed on from parent to child. There is a deep joy to watch your children grow up and continue on with the love of reading. I consider it one of my favorite accomplishments.

Reading is so wrapped around the development of our children. Its key to brain development and it also serves as a bonding agent between parent and child. The skills learned while reading are endless. Phonics, phonetics, memory, and reasoning skills. Creativity, imagination, humor. These are just some of the benefits of reading to your child and helping them discover the joy of reading.

Reading and the internet are so ingrained in us that sometimes I don't think we realize how much we read. We are so good at multitasking and having multiple layers of media running at the same time that our senses are dulled to how much information we intake daily.

Whether its research, school related, or for pleasure our daily lives are wrapped around technology. I have to search out, and I mean really search out, to find people that aren't using technolorgy in thier daily lives.

Whether it is a kindle, ipad, or some other electronic reader. Maybe its an ebook, ezine, Hubpage, our favorite blog. Or maybe just simply typing in a few key words into our favorite search engine like Google or Bing. We click, our eyes blink and we read. We live in an amazing time of discovery and technology. These tools are here to help us and I use them for that purpose.

I have apps on my phone to my favorite classic book collection. I have bookmarked pages that quickly bring me to my favorite blogs and hubs. I use RSS feeds to monitor and bring my favorite sites new information right to me. And yes I use other hand-held devices to organize and utilize every spare second of my day. If I have five minutes I'm usually reading.

I will continue to use all these, because honestly curling up with a good book has a whole new meaning to me. When I was younger these options weren't available. But they are now.

Some additional reading Statistics

• In a class of 20 students, few if any teachers can find even 5 minutes of time in a day to devote to reading with each student.
• 56 percent of young people say they read more than 10 books a year, with middle school students reading the most. Some 70 percent of middle school students read more than 10 books a year, compared with only 49 percent of high school students
• 15 percent of the population has specific reading disorders. Of these 15 percent as many as 1/3 may show change in the brain structure
• It is estimated that as many as 15 percent of American students may be dyslexic.
• There are almost half a million words in our English Language - the largest language on earth, incidentally - but a third of all our writing is made up of only twenty-two words.
• Out-of-school reading habits of students has shown that even 15 minutes a day of independent reading can expose students to more than a million words of text in a year.
• The average reader spends about 1/6th of the time they spend reading actually rereading words
• Students who reported having all four types of reading materials (books, magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias) in their home scored, on average, higher than those who reporter having fewer reading materials.
• Forty-four percent of American 4th grade students cannot read fluently, even when they read grade-level stories aloud under supportive testing conditions.
• 15% of all 4th graders read no faster than 74 words per minute, a pace at which it would be difficult to keep track of ideas as they are developing within the sentence and across the page.
• In 1999, only 53 percent of children aged 3 to 5 were read to daily by a family member. Children in families with incomes below the poverty line are less likely to be read aloud to everyday than are children in families with incomes at or above the poverty line.
• According to the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 37 percent of fourth graders and 26 percent of eighth graders cannot read at the basic level; and on the 2002 NAEP 26 percent of twelfth graders cannot read at the basic level. That is, when reading grade appropriate text these students cannot extract the general meaning or make obvious connections between the text and their own experiences or make simple inferences from the text. In other words, they cannot understand what they have read.
• Click here to read the Reference

“Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.” Jean Rhys

It may be difficult at the end of the day to add up all that you've read. It may be impossible to sit down and say this is what I've learned, this is what I've read. With the way our lives are now its not like cracking open a book and when you set it down there is a physical bookmark to tell you of your progress.

Don't let that stop you. Whether its print material, magazines, newspapers, books, or catalogs. Or if your choice is all internet and electronic focused, just read! Read everything you can. Grow, stretch, challenge yourself. Don't get stuck reading the same stuff. Read autobiographies, research papers, poetry, short stories, novels. Read newspapers, and cook books. Read websites and articles. Read about things you already know about. Read about things you've never heard of. Whatever you do, just read.

- Todd