🇬🇧 The importance of reading habit and how to develop it

A very common problem among young people nowadays, but also in people of previous generations, is the lack of habit of reading. The US film industry has created so many film adaptations of books aimed at children and teenagers that it is tempting to ignore the books. If the child's family is not an example that inspires and encourages him to read, how will he develop this habit and benefit from it? It is very harmful to overlook the importance of reading. In this text I will mention some common problems of people who are not in the habit of reading, from the point of view of a person who has had the habit of reading since childhood, and I will give some tips for those who want to create this habit and keep it.

The first problem concerns creativity. When you read a book before seeing a film you have to imagine the characters, the settings, the situations. If you see the movie, someone figured it out for you and you don't develop that ability. You associate Harry Potter with Daniel Radcliffe. And ignore that the character's hair, in the book, wasn't as tidy as it was in the movie. Just to give a silly example. The Harry Potter film adaptations were reasonably true to the books in facts, but not in the characteristics of different characters.

Another problem resulting from the lack of reading habit is the quality of writing. Grammatical and spelling errors, as well as vocabulary limitations, are signs of someone not cultivating the habit of reading. I, a Portuguese native speaker, nowadays try to read in English and Italian whenever possible to improve my communication in these languages. In other languages ​​I still have a lot to study to be able to understand complex content.

In addition to these, the interpretation, both of the text and of the situations, and the critical sense, are other damaged aspects. And this makes these people very manipulable and with little ability to present coherent arguments.

It is enough to unmask the defects of those who do not read. Let's move on to develop a habit of reading. I've been reading since I was a little girl and had a library at home. Nowadays it is possible to buy e-books on the mobile, so you also have a library at home.

The first step is to choose a book to read. You can choose literary works recognised for their excellence or simpler books. You know your limits and tastes better than I do, so make a choice. You are the one who will read the book! From time to time I talk about books I read here on the site and on my social networks, so follow my profiles if you want advice for your next books. If you don't have a preference, go to the literature section of your nearest bookstore or library and choose any book. Some thick books are great to read and have a more pleasant narrative than other thin books, so don't let the size of the book scare you. If you go to a bookstore or library, browsing through the book and reading excerpts from it can help you decide whether you like that content or not. Go on a day off, with no rush.

Once you've chosen the book, take it home and set up a daily reading challenge. You can start by reading at least one full page per day. No matter how busy your day is, you have time to read a page.

Then, create a reading calendar and track your progress, marking the days you hit your goal and how many pages you read each day. You can use your mobile calendar or a paper calendar, an agenda, a planner. The important thing is to register to create references.

Once this is done, start reading.

The next month, increase your goal. If you've challenged yourself to read one page a day and managed to read at least two a day, your challenge should be greater than what you achieved for most of the previous month. Keep increasing the goal a little bit every month, just like sportsmen do or even like we do in weight training classes, which as exercise becomes a habit, the trainer increases the load to be more challenging.

And when you finish the first book, choose another one, keeping the reading goal you had when you finished the previous one and continuing to increase the goal a little each month, and winning challenges every day.

The benefits of reading are valid for any language. To better understand the culture of other countries, I recommend getting acquainted with the children's literature of that country.

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Nycka, the Nomad