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Mrs Chilton
Head of Teaching and Learning

The importance of reading

This week in Assembly, I spoke to the girls about the importance of reading. Recent research indicates that in the USA, reading for pleasure has declined by 40% in the last 20 years. The National Literacy Trust in the UK also reported that children’s reading is now at the lowest on record. The Australia Reads National Reading Survey reported a significant decline in both children’s and adult reading in the last few years.

There are numerous contributing factors that have influenced this decline, and we are very conscious of helping the girls to persevere with reading, even when they find it challenging or unenjoyable. Reading is associated with a number of cognitive benefits including improved memory and attention span, better analytical thinking, and improved verbal fluency.

Here are a few other reasons I shared with the girls about why reading is important:

  • It helps us to be empathetic and better understand the perspectives of others
  • It gives language to and allows us to grieve the brokenness in our world
  • It helps us to think about ideas in nuanced and complex ways
  • It helps us imagine possibilities and promotes creativity and a vivid imagination
  • It helps us to learn how to express our emotions
  • It allows us to get swept away into completely different worlds, which can be so needed in times of overwhelm and complexity.

If you find your daughter is struggling to make time to read in her week, here are a few strategies to promote her enjoyment of reading:

  • Designate no phone or television time for the whole household on weekends (model reading)
  • Encourage reading for ten minutes before bed each night
  • Do not worry too much about the type of books, encourage reading for enjoyment (e.g. if she enjoys books about sport or graphic novels, start there)
  • Encourage reading the book before watching the movie or television version
  • Make the visit to the bookshop a reward for things like going to the dentist!

The Library staff at Meriden are always happy to recommend books to students and provide guidance about how to get reading when your daughters are in a reading slump. There are also a number of resources available on the Library eVe page.