Saturday, August 19, 2017

Reading is Fundamental

I fondly remember those old commercials that tried to convince folks to start reading by telling them that, "Reading is FUNdamental." I have always loved reading, and even though those commercials didn't exactly apply to me, I appreciated them. Back in the day, too many of my peers avoided reading and some of them absolutely hated it. I, on the other hand, was addicted to reading and if I ran out of books to read, I would read cereal boxes, canned food labels, whatever was at hand. In an unselfish act of parental love, my parents sacrificed themselves financially in order to buy our household a set of encyclopedias from a traveling encyclopedia salesman that showed up at our door in East New York (remember those?). They fed my addiction with those wonderful, sacred tomes and I loved them all the more for it. I voraciously read every single book, including the bonus dictionary, from cover to cover, and then I read them again. I loved those books so much that 50 years later, I still have some of them (including the bonus dictionary) in my bookcase at home.
  In school, it was pretty much the same thing. There was a reading program introduced to inner city  schools at the time in which student were encouraged to read various books called "Readers" (I still have a couple of those too, gifted to me by the P.T.A. of my grade school), and then once you've finished a story in the reader, the teacher would then hand you a color-coded card from the set on her desk and you would answer the questions on the card pertaining to the story. This system was designed to last for the entire school year. I finished the entire set in less than two months. I wound up going through the whole program at least four times before any of my fellow students had finished it even once. Why? Because I truly loved reading, and I still do. By the time I finished the third grade, I had an 11.4 reading level. In junior-high school, I wrote an article that was published (my first published work!) as a Guest column in D.C. comics. What was the subject? How reading comic books is good for you!
  In an article in the online newsletter Lifehack titled, "The 10 Benefits of Reading" by Lana Winter-Hébert, she outlines the benefits of reading. I'm just going to briefly paraphrase each point she makes.

1. Mental Stimulation

Studies have shown that staying mentally stimulated can slow the progress of (or possibly even prevent) Alzheimer's and Dementia, since keeping your brain active and engaged prevents it from losing power.

2. Stress Reduction

No matter how much stress you have at work, in your personal relationships, or countless other issues faced in daily life, it all just slips away when you lose yourself in a great story.

3. Knowledge

Everything you read fills your head with new bits of information, and you never know when it might come in handy.

4. Vocabulary Expansion

This goes with the above topic: the more you read, the more words you gain exposure to, and they'll inevitably make their way into your everyday vocabulary.

5. Memory Improvement

When you read a book, you have to remember an assortment of characters, their backgrounds, ambitions, history, and nuances, as well as the various arcs and sub-plots that weave their way through every story.

6. Stronger Analytical Thinking Skills

Have you ever read an amazing mystery novel, and solved the mystery yourself before finishing the book? If so, you were able to put critical and analytical thinking to work by taking note of all the details provided and sorting them out to determine "whodunnit".

7. Improved Focus and Concentration

When you read a book, all of your attention is focused on the story—the rest of the world just falls away, and you can immerse yourself in every fine detail you're absorbing.

8. Better Writing Skills

This goes hand-in-hand with the expansion of your vocabulary: exposure to published, well-written work has a noted effect on one's own writing, as observing the cadence, fluidity, and writing styles of other authors will invariably influence your own work. In the same way that musicians influence one another, and painters use techniques established by previous masters, so do writers learn how to craft prose by reading the works of others.

9. Tranquility

In addition to the relaxation that accompanies reading a good book, it's possible that the subject you read about can bring about immense inner peace and tranquility.

10. Free Entertainment

For low-budget entertainment, you can visit your local library and bask in the glory of the countless tomes available there for free.

Notice the one that I bolded?  It says in a nutshell what I am trying to get across to you, and that is that you cannot possibly be a good writer without first being a good and dedicated reader. I have been approached by quite a few people that tell me they are writiing or want to write a book, but they dislike reading. How is that going to work? To write, you must be a connoisseur of the language in which you intend to write. No one is saying that you should know every word and the meaning of those words, but you should have a working knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, spelling, syntax...  and all of those things are developed and sharpened via reading. Tons of people that I know want to write their memoirs or the biography of a family member or loved one, but most of those same people have never read one. In my home, everyone has their own library of books and in each library is a broad sprinkling of various genres and types. My own library contains everything from a collection of Shakespeare's works, to Sci-Fi and Fantasy books, to books on religion, to books by contemporary Latino authors, to books on geography, history, science, politics, war, writing, and horror. And, of course, I also have the biographies of Barack Obama, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Benjamin Franklin, Thurgood Marshall, and even Adoplh Hitler on my shelves.
A writer should, by consequence, be a reader. Ultimately it's good for them, good for their readers, and good for their writing.
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