Reading correlates with almost every measurement of positive personal and social behavior surveyed. It is reassuring, though hardly amazing,that readers attend more concerts and theater than non-readers, but it is surprising that they exercise more and play more sports—no matter what their educational level. Cold statistics confirm something that most readers know but have mostly been reluctant to declare as fact — books change lives for the better.
Dana Goia, Chair of the
National Endowment for Arts
I am often asked, what is the best thing I can do to help my child? And I am always wary of a single response – so much depends on the child, and on what we parents are or are not already doing. But one thing that has both tradition and statistics going for it is modest, achievable, and makes a huge difference. It is simply this: develop in your children the habit of reading for pleasure, for at least two hours each week. This is backed up by solid research (see this report) which has shown that the highest achieving students are those who devote leisure time to reading and indeed, one study even found that the single most important predictor of academic success is the amount of time students spend reading. Note also, that the amount of time students devote to leisure reading is also one of the few predictors of high achievement in Mathematics and Science (see here and here for further details)
So what to do? The simple answer is: Value reading, and look what follows: Talk about books; be seen reading; let your children choose what to read; have books everywhere, and have reading routines. It’s that simple (here are a few words on this areas, suitable for young children too); two useful sites to help choose books are theUWCSEA library and Goodreads.
Of course, while it’s great that reading improves academic attainment, the value of reading widely are far more profound. And though we ask students to read in English lessons, this is not about English; it’s about using reading as a habit to develop reasoning and empathy. When we read, we become more informed about the world and how it works; we learn to engage with other people’s perspectives; we are led to imagine how others might feel in situations we have never encountered. These are some of the most useful skills imaginable, and when put like that, perhaps it’s not such a surprise that reading is so powerful.
I know parents of teenagers sometimes feel powerless to make much difference to their increasingly independent children, but early in the academic year while students are, we hope, still in the thrill of the new, there is a small window to develop the habits that will make a difference to their whole year and
beyond. For the reasons I outline above, instilling this habit could be the best thing you ever do for your child’s education – after sending them to UWCSEA, of course :-).
