Publications
Partners
My friend’s son can’t spell – he just doesn’t get it. The other thing he doesn’t get is reading for pleasure.
The two are inextricably linked.
In his state of the nation address – sandwiched between the importance of getting our young people into work and halving crime – President Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted the need for a massive national reading campaign.
“If we are to ensure that, within the next decade, every 10-year-old will be able to read for meaning, we will need to mobilise the entire nation behind a massive reading campaign. Early reading is the basic foundation that determines a child’s educational progress, through school, through higher education and into the work place,” he said.
So far, so good. But not nearly far enough. Reading is not simply about passing school subjects, getting a qualification and then a job.
It is about self-actualisation and it is about critical thinking. It is about developing the required skills to survive on our increasingly scorched Earth. It is about developing a lifelong pleasure.
Creativity is sparked by reading; reading teaches children about the construction of language and so turns them into better communicators.
Reading builds neural pathways in the brain, literally changing the way the brain functions. All this just by reading an airport novel.
Scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine in the US found that the act of reading involves 17 regions of the brain, but not all at the same time.
Reading is also linked to improved parent-child relations – if only because it brings parents and children together for an undistracted half an hour. Reading builds empathy – a 2014 study in Italy found that reading Harry Potter increased empathy.
The lead researcher wrote in The Cut: “Encouraging book reading and incorporating it in school curricula may not only increase the students’ literacy levels, but also enhance their pro-social attitudes and behaviours, and ultimately help in the creation of a more equal society.”
While I applaud the interventions announced by the president, we could make it easier for everyone – not only children younger than 10 – to read for pleasure.
The late academic Charles W Eliot wrote: “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.”
And reading books will mould the resilient, adaptable leaders our uncertain future needs to steer it. Especially if they enjoy it, too!
 |
| ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
