READING HABITS

Reading habits establish not only the settlement for every student to understand a topic or a subject but those habits go deeper in the evolution of the human being. Creating and stimulating reading habits make a person capable of generating new thoughts, new words, and new expressions in their mind. Reading fosters the necessity of writing, as well as of keeping our minds organised.

But... what about reading in English? It is essential to make our students aware of the importance of reading in English, not just because English is useful but because the world becomes smaller when you know how to read in English. We are living in an era in which we are surrounded by information (info overload), and genuine information is normally written in English (in ever sphere). That is the reason why we (as teachers) have the tough task of fostering our students’ taste for reading for pleasure as well as for academic purposes. Besides, it is important to highlight that reading habits determine the academic achievements of students to a great extent, hence educational success requires successful reading habit.

 Concerning the tasks proposed....

In picture number 1, I think they must be reading by pleasure surrounded by thousands of books of every genre and style... sitting on those comfy armchairs...

Regarding picture number 2, it seems that the grandmother is teaching his grandson how to read... from my experience (and taking into account that picture is black and white) it is weird, because 60 years ago education was not essential so many of our elder people don’t how to read or write.

Contrastingly, picture 3 shows how we evolve no matter our age, and how technology evolves as well. It must be mind-bending for those people over 70 to try to understand how a tiny device can house such a huge amount of possibilities.

Picture 4 shows those compulsory graded readers at school. As a teacher, I must admit that we do it every year, although we are trying to adapt those compulsory graded readers to our readers’ tastes, although sometimes it is unbearable.

The last picture shows me the real necessity of the human being of being informed as well as the pleasure for reading: no luxuries just newspapers’ articles about culture, sports, events, opinions...no matter the place.

When talking about reading decisions, I have to admit that I like reading every type of genre, nevertheless, when I select a book in Spanish I normally opt for literary varieties, preferably in paper or e-book.

“Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.”

― Joseph Addison