Why Is It Important To Read?

Did you know that sixty percent of all the energy a baby expends is concentrated in the brain? With a baby’s mind expending so much energy it allows the brain to develop more quickly when read or spoken to. Thinking back to when you were still an infant, you can still recall your earliest memories involving books or stories that you either read or were read to. Now jumping into the present, you can imagine that your reading habits from childhood to adult life may have changed drastically or not at all. Whether or not you were read to, every parent wants to see their child excel at reading comprehension because they understand the importance of this skill.
This skill has been taught since you have gotten into school,which relates to your earliest
memories from childhood. The earliest memory that I recall of me learning to read, would have to be back in elementary school when the teacher would have us try to pronounce the letters while having them read to us. In the beginning try to pronounce the letters into words were pretty difficult, especially for someone who never spoke at all. But not too long after learning the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, I was able to become a proficient reader by learning the syllable method, which had to deal with clapping your hands as you were trying to pronounce the word, to get a grasp of what the word sounded like. Learning this reading method helped me become an adequate reader for my own age group. Learning to read was really fun with the simple stories that we first began to read, such as “The Three Little Pigs” and “Little Red Riding Hood”. It was interesting because I noticed as I read I could see images of the story being imprinted into my mind. It was as if a movie was being played in my head as I read each line of the story. But sadly in my own home my parents never read any stories or told me any tall tales. But however, in school when the teacher would assign a book for me to read she would let me decide the story of my choosing. The stories I always read was “The Magic Tree House” collection. I loved these stories because of the background, where two siblings go into a tree house and time travel to learn about history and go adventuring. This was the only collection of stories that I personally enjoyed reading outside of school as a child. From elementary to middle school, I began to disregard reading as an assignment. Then once heading into high school, I began to enjoy the stories being read in class discussions. But not too much has changed from middle school to high school, I just enjoy reading a little more than I did before. Over the course of my life, I have found some positive and negative habits that affect my reading today.
It seems as if the only time I read is when I am assigned something to read outside of class. I have been assigned articles and books to read such as, “The Outsiders”, “The Giver”, and “Romeo and Juliet”. Being assigned these reading assignments I would believe these are very easy to comprehend for myself. I would say reading these books were actually pretty enjoyable, especially “The Outsiders”, because I feel I have a connection with the main character of the story.The reason being because the main character had two older brothers and grew up in poverty where his oldest brother was the only one taking care of the family. In truth, the story basically tales of my life, where I have two older brothers that took care of me while we we’re growing up in the ghetto. It is pretty rare for me to read something outside of class or work, that I enjoy, unless it’s on a topic in which I can involve my own thoughts within it. The materials I would read outside of class would be stories or articles that have to do with violence in the community or just anything that has to do with with the government and its controversial ideas. The reason I choose not to read is mainly because I am usually spending time with my family or just occupied with my work and social life. The current reading habits I have obtained over the course of my life consists of only reading one chapter at a time
if I enjoy the story. But if I am not intrigued in the story by the second chapter, I would most commonly just put then book down and never pick it up again. If I could comprehend the materials read in my academic life I believe I would be in a higher English writing class because my understanding of writing would be much greater than what it is now. Being able not to read as well as others puts me at a disadvantage emotionally knowing that others can comprehend some of the conversations and ideas given through articles and stories. Never having the opportunity to have my parents read to me, has had a major impact on my reading and comprehension skills that others had developed when young.
Just as Perri Klass states in the article “ Bedtime Stories for Young Brains”, literacy promotion starting at birth can help language development and school success (Klass 1). The idea of wanting to help my children develop their minds at a young age relates to me as a current reader because it helps me encourage myself to be a good role model and to start to read, so when I do have my own kids it will encourage them to open a book and engulf their minds in the imagery of the context of the story. Stated by Perri Klass “…home reading showed significantly more activity in the areas of the brain that process visual association”(Klass 1). Knowing how the mind works, allows us to learn how to engulf our children’s minds helping them succeed in their near future. Helping your children visualize while you read to them is a great way for them to begin to develop a way to picture images from just hearing what others are saying. Like Klass, I can absolutely say, that I will give my children the opportunity that I never had, at early brain development by starting to read short stories to them to help my offspring become more proficient and passionate about reading so that when they have children of their own, they will understand the importance of reading to their children and the opportunities that will arise if they
do. Reading stories to your children as they become young adults will help them become more proficient readers as they develop their reading comprehension. Without this skill, its makes it very difficult to be able to understand many ideas and philosophies that are inputted into today’s society. So, to help the future generation develop this particular skill more adequate, we as parents must begin to read to our children as soon as possible.