Reading for pleasure amongst college students and children alike has become more and more rare. This decline in reading is setting students up for failure in their studies. Reading helps students comprehend textbook material, and depending on the school, classes and professors, students typically have a considerable amount of textbook reading to do before each class. Students and children alike should be encouraged by professors, teachers and parents to read more books for pleasure and less that deal strictly with academic material.
Reading books for pleasure has been proven to increase reading proficiency, which can help people of all ages advance their vocabulary, analyze situations, reason logically and communicate their ideas effectively. These skills come in handy in the workplace, furthering the incentive to increase reading rates amongst university students. Reading for pleasure develops the ability to better understand the materials in class and the skills to perform better in the workplace.
Books can transport readers to a different world, with different characters, problems and friends. It provides an outlet to get away from problems for a little bit and get some perspective on their own lives. Reading has been proven to lower stress levels and can help people fall asleep faster — two considerable factors in mental health. If not for the academic advantages, students should consider pleasure reading for the mental health aspect.
Socioeconomic backgrounds, family involvement, schools, learning disabilities and various other factors can affect the amount of reading children do. Students who do not have the ability, resources or early encouragement to read can be delayed in their academic and personal achievements. They have a considerable disadvantage to their peers, who read growing up and therefore can better handle the course load of heavy textbook reading.
Although increased reading of textbooks is reasonable at an institution of higher learning, new demand for textbook reading discourages students from reading books for personal pleasure. Reading outside of textbooks accelerates students’ vocabularies, better equipping students to understand those textbooks, and those without these abilities suffer in their studies. Perhaps professors could consider assigning less textbook material and more books related to real-life applications.
Students are typically expected to know some preliminary material before the class, so they can further their understanding. This understanding generally stems from reading materials such as related articles and textbooks. All of this reading for homework can deter students from reaching for a book on the shelf, because they have already read a significant amount, just not for fun.
Encouraging children to read at an earlier age is an alternative solution that would prepare college students for the increased workload, rather than adjusting the workload. Instead of having one book for an incoming class, teachers could allow the children and parents to choose a book that they are interested in. High schoolers could try and find time to read a page or two a day. There is not one concrete answer — many things must be done to encourage children to read for pleasure.
