You must have heard it from many people that reading is very important for everyone but only a few could deeply explain about why
reading is so important to us. Here I will try to cover each point stating the importance of reading.
Reading is not just spelling the words correctly, like most of us used to do in junior classes when our teachers used to make us stand and we always tried to pronounce each words correctly.
In fact, reading is a process
through which we receive information. It can be silent or loud, but the important
part is to understand the meaning of words.
We understood the actual
meaning of reading. Now let’s understand why most of the people want to make
reading a habit.
I will explain the
importance of reading for each age group.
Importance of reading for a child:
Children are like clay, they can acquire a shape as
per your guidance. This is the age when a parent can effortlessly build a habit of reading among their child. Reading
is a kind of exercise which enhances our brain muscles and hence brings strong
imagination power and focus.
If your child has reading
habit, then they will be more innovative as they goanna read stories and will
try to visualize things. It might happen that they don’t like the ending and
in that case your child may think in a different direction and can create their own
stories of similar character through imagination. Reading will enhance their vocabulary,
language and communication skills at a very early stage.
It also helps to stimulate curiosity among them, but unfortunately now a days kids are getting attracted towards tabs, online games, cartoons etc. These all are amusements and they won’t learn anything useful from these stuffs. Brain gets relaxed when we use these amusements, no extra efforts are required for brain to understand these games, and hence, these things will reduce your child’s learning capacity and they will be deprived of focus.
Importance of reading to an adult:
Adolescence is the age when
we get the most distraction. It's very difficult to concentrate on one thing, but in
case of reading you will be more focused and can concentrate on any damn thing.
It also increases your
analytical thinking ability and opens your mind. You will be able to think in
different perspective. Day by day you will realize that you are gaining self
confidence as knowledge always improves confidence.
Adults have tendency for meet
ups and gathering which is a good sign, but it becomes very difficult to spend
an hour alone. In my personal experience, I can assure you that you won’t face
any difficulty in spending "me" times. Reading of your genre is a great source of
entertainment but for that you need to identify your genre.
Last but not the least, it
also helps in public speaking. I'll explain you how, most of us are afraid of this
because of low confidence and low confidence is the result of lack of knowledge, but as I said books are always helpful in gaining knowledge and hence enhances
our confidence which will build public speaking ability. This is the experience that I have gained, and I truly believe this.
Scientific reasons behind reading
- It reduces stress level and you will gain some sort of inner peace. I have experienced it, it always works for me.
- It also helps you fall asleep.
- Reading may add few more years to your life.
- Reading autobiography and self helps will inspire you to do something different and creative.
- Reading can make you more empathetic.
Even great businessman,
entrepreneurs, CEOs read a lot to learn from someone’s mistakes because it is
always better that you learn from other's mistakes rather than from your own mistakes, because that would come with a cost that you will have to pay.
Reading habits of some of the most Successful people
- Warren Buffet - He uses 80% of his day in reading. Buffet reads 500-1000 pages daily.
- Bill Gates - He reads one book per week.
- Mark Zuckerberg - He reads one book every two weeks.
- Satya Nadella - He also likes reading and recommends books to read.
How these busiest people find time to read?
You must be thinking how these leaders find time, and answer to this question is, it is their top priority. They don't feel satisfied if they don't read books. Books are a great learning medium for them. They feel level of comfortless in their businesses. Each one of them might be from different industry, but the common thing among them is reading and they know why reading is important.
Which type of book one should pick?
Now that we have seen how important reading is, one question may arise here in your mind that how could any damn read would shape your future. Initially to get into reading mode one can start with anything, maybe with newspaper or magazine, any best-selling novel.
Firstly you need to understand your area of interest or genre and maybe start with fiction. Initially set small goals, for an instance, read maybe 10-15 pages per day and later you may increase the number of pages, but once you feel that you have crossed the beginner level, at this point of time you would have patience, focus which is required to read non-fictions as most of the successful leaders are always inclined towards self-helps like biographies, autobiographies of others who are successful.
So, once you reach intermediate level then you can judiciously choose your read and that will shape your future and will give a direction to your life.
Suggestion of some Good Reads for you
- Click below to read the full review
