Reading is Good for You!

[Paul Whybrow]

As if you didn't know already, reading is good for you...and, extrapolating, the stories you're writing now will benefit future readers.

Two articles linked from today's Tips, Links & Suggestions column of the Guardian Books page discuss the value of reading for staving off dementia and increasing the "cognitive ability and skills and language and literacy,...(and) behaviour of a child."

Read a book --- it could save your sanity » MobyLives

Books benefit behavior, learning

I see proof of the blessing of reading on my weekly visit to the nearest public library, when there's usually a toddlers' group, from the local nursery school, visiting to be read to by the librarian and to borrow one book each. Meanwhile, on the table next to the junior library, the reading group, which is comprised of ten women (average age 65) are discussing a novel. Both groups have a sense of wonder—their language stimulated by exploring the world within a book—reading is travelling in time and space!

 

[Inga Vesper]

Great articles and a lovely picture. My mum is a primary school teacher, and she starts and ends each week with half an hour of reading (she's reads out loud for the younger ones, the older ones read out loud in turns). She always says how worrying it is when children have never, or rarely, encountered books before, and how amazing when they discover that reading is more than just making sense of words; it can take you to another place.

No matter how rowdy the class, they all sit still for reading time

 

[Amber]

Right.

 

[Andrew F]

There is also some evidence that reading certain types of fiction might improve empathic function as well.