Dana Gioia offers convincing argument on the importance of reading, which has been dramatically declining for decades. In fact, an ability to read critically is fundamental for social interactions, range of thinking and even sustainability of society. To build the argument profoundly, author uses variety of facts and studies, personal anecdote and conclusions.…
This report documents a national crisis, Gioia said. "Reading develops a capacity for focused attention and imaginative growth that enriches both private and public life. The decline in reading among every segment of the adult population reflects a general collapse in advanced literacy. To lose this human capacity, and all the diverse benefits it fosters impoverishes both cultural and civic life." While all demographic groups showed declines in literary reading between 1982 and 2002, the survey shows some are dropping more rapidly than others. The overall rate of decline has accelerated from 5 to 14 percent since 1992.…
Girls and boys from school districts around the world are encouraged to practice reading in their daily lives due its beneficial effects. Writer Alan Maley encourages Extensive Reading, which guides students to read independently and extrinsically. He believes that it, “develops learner autonomy...enhances general language competence” and, “helps develop general, world knowledge” (Maley 2-3). However, the number of people choosing to spend their leisure time invested in a novel is declining by the year. According to Charlotte Alter from Time, “45% of 17-year-olds say they only read once or twice a year, but in 1984, 64% said they read once a week or more”(1). The reason for such a decline can be traced back to technological advancements distracting the younger…
Reading can open one’s mind to the imagination of anything to be dreamt of. Poems, short stories, novels, plays, and dramas are all different types of literature that exist today. All of the different types of literature have their own ways and formats that they are written in. Literature has many ways of speaking to us as we read them, it can strike up emotions or memories that we have or it can make us rethink a situation that we are going through. I believe that literature can help a person open up through his or her stories.…
“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads”. –Ralph Waldo Emerson. We are traveling down the path of life to gain knowledge and power, striving to read more: novels, books, and poems. Reading becomes important as you grow as a student K-12. Yet, reading may become boring after becoming a man, makes me wish I read more growing up.…
People nowadays are reading less because of technology and its ease of use. When people want something, they want it fast and on the spot. That’s why technology is such a huge influence on today’s culture. With technology, everything is so much easier to access. It could take you seconds to pull up a movie on your phone with today’s technology. Less Americans result to reading, in fact, "according to one recent study 55 percent of Americans spend less than thirty minutes reading anything at all."(14) Reading is important and people need to be reading…
The more we spent on the Internet, the less we read books. Yes, books. The most direct way to perceive knowledge. Not only reading books but magazines are also a brilliant way to get informed of what’s going on around the world. Even novels or literatures could improve our quality and temperament. Reading books and articles enables us to think critically, so that we can have more ideas about the worldwide issues. However, it is sad that we usually don’t read in our free time unless the teacher told us to read the text books.…
Dear Grace Literacy is crucial to the success of individuals in both their career aspirations and their quality of life. Strong literacy skills are closely linked to the probability of having a good job, decent earnings, and access to training opportunities. Individuals with weak literacy skills are more likely to be unemployed or, if employed, to be in jobs that pay little or that offer poor hours or working conditions. Traditionally, literacy has referred to the ability to read, understand, and use information. But the term has come to take on broader meaning, standing for a range of knowledge, skills and abilities relating to reading, mathematics, science and more.…
Gioia warns that as increasing numbers of Americans put down their books, they also invest less in the nation’s civic and cultural life. In a program moderated by writer Jewelle Gomez, Gioia calls for a revival in reading, beginning in the schools.…
Learning how to read was at one point of time in my life a huge obstacle that was preventing me from learning and doing other things such as writing. This event matters because as a result of being able to read, a door of opportunities opened for me as well. Not only that, but I was now able to see and understand my true calling which was teaching and encouraging others to learn how to read as well. I wanted others to understand how reading was something that you should want to do and enjoy doing. In this story, what’s at stake is my passion and my future because after understanding and realizing that I loved reading, I wanted others to do the same as well.…
Every since I can remember reading has been a up and down thing for me. I always loved to get read to when I was a little girl and to look at picture books making up my own words to go along. Throughout the years reading has grown on me in many different ways.…
Reality is that reading is like a food for our brain if we will not fed our brain it won't survive any longer. The human brain's structure is a very complicated still being under exploration compare to other creatures living on the earth were able to think analysis and act with purpose. Later they found some ways to express themselves on very different kinds of material that they could save for future generations thus starting to create human history. The human brain ability doesn’t know any limits and the history can be a witness of that fact. Now it is our responsibility to continue the job which our ancestors started and passed through generations with improvements and explorations. Despite of the presence of high technology and the use of the internet we should continue very pleasurable and useful practice which is the key to our future. We should write and read and continue to create and save it for future generation, educate and develop this ability to our children and we should create our self image, in other words continue to be…
Reading is the essential element of any individual to succeed in life, the development of the brain is nourished of what we read and many students have problems reading and understanding correctly, that is why the connection between school and what students do at home is important. When children start reading at young age with guidance their reading skills and understanding develop. I like to promote reading, because it really helps to improve the brain’s activity.…
Any good writer knows about the impact that reading can have on his/her work, as well as that in order to be able to fully understand and digest a piece of literature, one should follow the basic guidelines of active reading, the type of reading where a reader subjects a writing to a critical analyze by using different types of reading techniques (Stubbs, Barnet, and Cain, 2). However, every reader, just like every writer, has his/her own style of reading that is composed of or is guided by a combination of different standard techniques set by active reading. Navigated by the guidelines of active reading, a reader can experience a book as a whole, without missing any important parts or ideas, while at the same time have an opportunity to establish a writer’s persona and subject his/her work to critical thinking.…
Personally, I love to read biographies of great men, especially, those who, through the exercise of their mental abilities, rose from almost nothing to enviable great heights in life. Be they blacks or whites, I have come to discover, in most cases, that the knowledge such people caught through books was the fundamental resource that empowered them to magnify their lives, multiply the ways in which they lived, making their lives full, phenomenal and interesting (Carson 1992). From every confirmation, most of them bagged assorted certificates. However, certificates were not the motivating factor that spurred them to read books in such manner that transformed them into great assets. Rather, they read books primarily for self-discovery and acquisition of useful knowledge, which they appropriated and applied in their daily lives. The books they read and they manner in which they read them served to strengthen, refine and ennoble their characters, giving them prized places in the affairs of life. Such door of strength and exploits in the affairs of life is still open to any person that musters the discipline to cultivate a good reading habit!…