Lets Encourage People to Read!

Posted on 9 October, 2013

 

Hello! I'm Lucy Powrie, a teenage blogger and booktuber from Bath, England. I'm the creator and host of #ukyachat, and the 2015 winner of the UKYBA Champion of YA Award.

 

Last year I had to write a persuasive speech for my English class and I’ve decided to post it today to share with you. I got top marks for it and, although I’ve adapted some of it to fit the blog, here it is today.

 The average reading age in the UK is nine years old and I think that that is appalling. Recent research has shown that fewer people are now reading for enjoyment. With the rise of television, computer games and social networking, people no longer feel the need to pick up a book when they can turn on a TV set or sit in front of a gaming console. Studies have shown that teenagers are now selecting easier reads. Professor Topping from the University of Dundee said that “[teenagers are] not only not reading at a higher level; they’re not thinking at a higher level.” The Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney are not only popular amongst Year Four pupils but also among Year Eleven students, a study has shown. By the age of thirteen and fourteen, pupils are reading books with an average reading age of ten.
I believe that everyone should read. Why? Because I know how much it has helped me. Through reading, I have met a lovely group of people and regularly come into contact with authors and publishers who I have learned a lot from. When I’m older I am hoping to work within publishing or write my own novel so the advice I’m given is invaluable. Over a year ago my granddad died and, following his passing, reading helped me to deal with the loss. It is safe to say that my life had dramatically changed and reading became a way to escape and forget. When I picked up a book, I could transport myself to another place and become enraptured in this new place, whether it’s the streets of New York or a land thousands of years in the future. I run my own website where I review books and the pleasure I get from sharing my views with like-minded people is something that I wouldn’t get from watching TV or playing sport.
Enough about me; why do I think other people should read? Well, people who read are more likely to have a higher self-esteem, better health, better jobs and higher paid wages than those who don’t.   Also, reading is important because things like following instructions and filling out forms is something that happens on a regular basis in today’s society. Being able to read a sign on the road or a piece of writing on the side of a food packet is really important and will help people out in many ways. Reading also improves your vocabulary, something that is really important. You may think that the only time you’ll need a good vocabulary is in English but it can also help with other subjects and will help you to understand, for example, questions in tests and earn you more marks in exams. As I mentioned earlier, TV and computer games are two of the most popular ways to spend free time and people are no longer leaving things up to their imaginations and are used to being shown images rather than thinking them up themselves. Who  has watched a movie that they never want to end? Books last a lot longer than films and are also a lot cheaper to buy and they don’t use up as much electricity!
I asked around the book blogging and reading community and people offered to write a few sentences to a short paragraph on why they liked reading, how reading has helped them and the things they’ve experienced through reading. Here is what they said:
Rachel Ward, award-winning author of the Numbers trilogy, said: ‘reading represents, among other things, an escape, a challenge, a source of insight and inspiration and a comfort.’
Zoe Crook, owner of popular book blog Bookhi, says that: ‘Without reading, I don’t know who I would be. Books have helped me get through problems, helped me to be myself and discover who I really am. The power of reading can transport you to a new world where you can meet crazy characters, have adventures and slip into someone else’s shoes. By only sitting in a chair, you can travel the globe, meet amazing people, escape from prison, meet the President and cheat death. The ability to be someone else and lose yourself in a new world is one of the reasons why I love reading so much; it allows you to forget the issues around you and live another life.’
Writer Sarah Benwell says: ‘[books] let you figure out who you are and who you want to be; what you think, and how to deal with life.’

So what can you do to get yourself interested in reading? Here are a few of my ideas:

• Start or join a book club- Book clubs are great for meeting new people and socialising. You may think that it will be full of geeks but there are actually some really nice people who go and it’s a good way to have fun.
•  Set yourself a goal each week to read for a certain amount of time, whether it is ten minutes or half an hour. That time can really help and it doesn’t take a lot of effort to sit yourself down and pick up a book.

•  Find something that you enjoy reading. There are a lot of websites where people take the time to review books and recommend them and it’s a great way to hear somebody else’s views before you buy a book.

•  Visit the library!  Borrowing from a library is an easy way to acquire books for free and you don’t have to read them if you don’t like them. All you need to do is sign up for a library card and then you can borrow away!

What do you think?

http://queenofcontemporary.com/2013/10/lets-encourage-people-read.html

www.readershub.net

Malaysia’s reading habit 

 by Christopher Teh Boon Sung

Update (30 Oct. 2013). Added two photos, updated some information, and slightly reformatted the article.
Source
http://www.christopherteh.com/blog/2010/07/malaysians-reading-habit/

It is well known, even among Malaysians, that Malaysians hardly ever read. So, imagine my surprise when the Information, Communication and Culture Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Seri Rais Yatim, recently said that “Reading has become an enveloping habit for Malaysians with most reading an average of eight to twelve books per year.”

How many books do Malaysians read per year? (photo from thestar.com.my)

In 1982, the National Literacy Survey carried out by the National Library reported that Malaysians only read an average of one to two pages a year. Fortunately, the reading habit among Malaysians improved to two books per year when the National Literacy Survey was repeated in 1996. Nonetheless, the last National Literacy Survey carried out in 2005 reported that Malaysians still read an average of two books a year. In short, there had been no improvement.
The last survey also reported that Malaysians read increasingly less as they grew older. By the age of 50, for example, only 20% of Malaysians would still continue to read books, a drop from 40% (a figure which is already pathetic) from those in the mid-twenties to thirties age group.

Reading rates in 2005 among Malaysians have not improved since 1996 (photo from thestar.com.my)

What about the reading rates from other countries? Surprisingly, finding that kind of information from the Internet makes quite a hard work. What I managed to procure was the following:

• Mexico: 0.5 books per year
• Chile: 1 book per year
• Thailand: 2 books per year
• Philippines: 3 books per year (interestingly, the Bible accounted two-thirds of the type of materials read)
• USA: 5 books per year (1 in 4 Americans never read a book, but for those who do read, the average number of books they read per year is 7, an average of 5 for males and 9 for females)
• Japan: 10 books per year
• France: 10 books per year
• Canada: 17 books per year

The worst record I got was that in the U.A.E. countries, where their citizens only spent an average of six minutes a year on reading books! The normal reading rate is 200 to 250 words per minute, and let’s further take the average number of words in a book as 100,000, with 250 words per page. This would make an average U.A.E. person covering only 1500 words (about six pages) per year or nearly 0.02 books a year!
Now, if Datuk Seri Rais Yatim is correct that we, Malaysians, read an average of eight to twelve books a year, this would make us one of the most well read people in the world! Could this wonderful news be true?
As they say: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
So how did our Minister of Information, Communication and Culture get that figure of eight to twelve books per year? Was there a recent (but done in secret) National Literacy Survey carried out? Unfortunately, our minister did not quote the reference or explained how that figure was derived.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter. This “latest” figure of eight to twelve books per year clearly contradicts what we know of ourselves and those we know. Ask ourselves, ask our colleagues, ask our friends. Do we like to read?

Evidence of Australians’ reading habit. Compare theirs with ours below (photo from cimeecomel.blogspot.com)

Why read when you can, err, stare into space? Typical non-reading scene in a Malaysian commuter train (photo from cimeecomel.blogspot.com)

Perhaps we could believe in a marginal improvement in the reading rate among Malaysians, but an improvement by as much as four to six times? If this improvement is true, it would be blindingly evident around us. You would see people reading on your left, right, and centre. Look around you… see any Malaysians reading? Perhaps reading while they wait for the bus, plane, or train? If you find one, he or she probably has an exam coming up. As a university lecturer, I can confidently tell you that there is hardly a university student whom I have met who willingly reads books (in any language).
Prof. Ambigapathy Pandian from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has perhaps studied the most on the reading habits of Malaysians. In an interesting paper by him in 2000, he surveyed that 80.1% of university students are “reluctant” readers in English-language materials. In other words, 80.1% university students read because they have to. Interestingly, Malay and Indian students have a higher tendency to seek English-language reading materials than the Chinese.
Based on his survey, Prof. Pandian also outlined a profile of a habitual reader in English. People who read often in English are likely to:

• live in an urban than in a rural area
• belong to a family with a high socio-economic standing
• come from a home where there is a greater variety and amount of materials in English, with more influence and reading models at home
• attend a school with a greater variety and amount of materials in English, with more teachers who encourage students to read and more friends who read English.
• be exposed more to English
• have a more positive attitude towards reading in English.

The Malaysian education system is in dire straits. With the education system reverting back to Malay language as the medium of instruction in schools and the government desperately plugging all holes in a sinking boat, I strongly believe the key to improving our education is the inculcation of a strong reading habit among all Malaysians. Although the government has launched several reading campaigns (the recent one is the Mari Membaca 1Malaysia, launched in March 2010) to increase the reading habit among Malaysians throughout the years, obviously these campaigns aren’t quite working as desired.
A reading habit is an essential life skill. Reading not only increases our knowledge, but it also builds maturity and character, sharpens our thinking, and widens our awareness in social, economic, political, and environmental issues. What most of us don’t know that, unlike speech, reading is a learned skill; our brains aren’t hard-wired to read. Although a baby can pick up speech from listening to others talking, reading requires learning. In other words, reading takes effort. It is hard work. But it builds our brain muscles. The effort to inculcate a reading habit pays off handsomely, either directly or indirectly, in our lives.
I like to end this topic by quoting from Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf, a book given to me by my wife, Jennifer, on my birthday:
Reading is one of the single most remarkable inventions in history; the ability to record history is one of its consequences. Our ancestors’ invention could come about only because of the human brain’s extraordinary ability to make new connections among its existing structures, a process made possible by the brain’s ability to be shaped by experience. This plasticity at the heart of the brain’s design forms the basis for much of who we are and who we might become.
…
Reading can be learned only because of the brain’s plastic design, and when reading takes place, that individual brain is forever changed, both physiologically and intellectually.

Proust and the Squid

Maryanne Wolf

Sources

Pandian, A. (2000). A study on readership behaviour among multi-ethnic, multi-lingual Malaysian students. A paper presented at the seventh International Literacy and Education Research Network (LERN) Conference on Learning, RMIT University, Melbourne, 5-9 July 2000.

Web sources

• http://i-baca.pnm.my/kajian/kajian_bm.asp
• http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/flc-cbf/publctn/rpt/104-eng.cfm
• http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?section=weekend&xfile=data/weekend/2009/september/weekend_september48.xml
• http://www.buchmesse.de/imperia/celum/documents/Buchmarkt%20Chile%20engl.%202010.pdf
• http://publishingperspectives.com/?p=8721
• http://www.bookmarket.com/statistics.html
• http://www.thailandqa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16563
• http://nbdb.gov.ph/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=42