Reading Is An Activity That Has Been Around For Many Years

“To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.” - Anthony Clifford Grayling, a British philosopher. I recollect my first time opening up my first book to read; it was a groundbreaking occasion. I did not realize that reading would be so astounding. All through my adolescent years, I did not have the opportunity to read books. I guess it is because of the surroundings that I experienced in childhood. My father was not a fanatic of reading books since he felt that it was a time executioner and that it does not help him profit; he was a drug dealer and a crackhead, which should give you a hint about his mentality.

The origins of reading have been continuously changing since the 1600’s. Reading is an integral part of our everyday life, without reading many of us wouldn’t be where we are today. Many important contributions have been made to literacy since the 1600’s. Literacy has been impacted since the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock and focused on religion. The government both federal and locally have made changes to how literacy would be instructed. Now a day’s literacy has a bigger impact with test like the Florida Standards Assessment being administered this year where students will no longer need paper and pencil to take a test but a desktop computer, a keyboard and a mouse.

In today’s society reading is essential to function. Everywhere people turn they are required to read directions, labels, books, what’s going on in the news, or mandatory rules they need to follow. Just think about if a majority of the world couldn’t read how chaotic society would be.

As a girl growing up around a group of bikers, boys and two parents who listened to eighties hair bands and metal, you wouldn’t think that I read or was read to frequently before starting school. I pursued in reading quite often, actually. When I finally started school, I had the tendency of keeping to myself and staying quiet. There never have been very many friends in the picture of my life. I learned at a young age that there often are going to be cliques, even when you’re an eight year old in girl scouts. I stood out in more ways than one, but for now I’m only going to elucidate why reading is so salient to me.

C.S. Lewis once said that “We read to know we are not alone”. However, we read for other reasons as well for information, for understanding, for guidance, for escapism, and for beauty. At the soul of it, I think Lewis was right. I think we read to know we are not alone. To know that someone else is out there who struggles from some of the same fear, who struggle with some of the same insecurities, lives with some of the same guilt, and share some of the same secrets. Reading isolates us from the make-up of our lives, from the routine, the habits of our everyday living. Lastly, we read to feel more attached to the greater reality of what has happened or is happening or may happen outside of our first-hand experience. For me, I love to read

I never understood the point of reading. My parents first introduced my siblings and I to its world at the early age of two. We were familiarized with letters, taught to link sound the visual and formed words with a stuttering start. We became accustomed to the quiet of Tuesday nights when my father would sit huddled on the sofa – my mother curled up in bed – his long nose buried in a novel, a black curtain cascading from her head to the pages, morphing into one with their respective books. As the night drew close the browns of their eyes would light up, while my mother’s red lips would quiver with excitement and my father would flash a lopsided smile. “Reading is an adventure,” they’d

Escaping from the severe reality of life helps a person get through their difficulties within life. Whether they have emotional or physical problems, or a person just needs a good story, reading can help a person explore new worlds through their imagination. I loved reading from a young age, and treasured the moments when my mother read to me. She helped me explore the unique worlds that authors try to portray through their writing.

Ages ago, spanning from when the Greeks ruled and well into the time when the Colonists first came to America, reading was a skill only the wealthy and the very lucky had the privilege to learn. In those times reading wasn’t necessary to work and to be successful. However, now in this modern era, reading has become necessary for everyday life; it has become vital to a society that is ever more dependent on technology. Nevertheless, reading is beneficial in ways that listening and watching movies can never be. The works of Anne Bradstreet, Henry David Thoreau, and Ben Franklin help acknowledge this idea through the impacts they have had on readers still today.

Most of us have been exposed to reading since we were young but not many of us have the

“To know how to read is to light a lamp in the mind, to release the soul from prison, to open a gate to the universe" Pearl S. Buck once said in her book Pavilion of Women. Many different people read for many different reasons. Some people read to distract themselves from what they are currently dealing with, others as a pastime and a few read to open their minds. Reading books and other forms of literature can not only expand one's vocabulary, but, open one's mind to different concepts or ideas.

Reading for pleasure, which has declined among young people in recent decades, enhances thinking and engages the imagination in a way that visual media such as video games and television do not.

Reading has been one of my favorite hobbies since I was a little child. I grew up as a normal child should grow and eventually I had to start learning for me to fit in society. My literacy started many years ago, after I knew how to talk and communicate with people. Reading my alphabet was quite stressful and I had to be given a hand by my family members. I remember my parents reading with me and it was the most meaningful and memorable way to spend time with me. This is because I liked reading a lot and I was eager to learn so that I could fit in with my older siblings. My favorite books were storybooks taking about adventures and fairytales

Reading has been around for over hundreds of decades. Over time, reading has evolved into different forms of designs, from real paper books to something you can just download on your electronic device and read. Let’s be honest here Like whales, the old way of reading is slowly heading to extension. A new survey from the Pew Research Center found that people in America are indeed reading less than before, since 2011 the percentage dropped down seven percent. Pew surveyed a total of 1,907 Americans, finding that although there is a slight sink from the last year. In spite that most Americans still read. The survey found that seventy percent of Americans that read a book in the past year, with over half of them reading four or more books.

To me, reading means getting to enter an alternate universe and making up my own story along with the plot. Even if it’s just for a few minutes, I get to forget about the real world for a bit. When I’m reading I get to become an entirely new person with an entirely new story. By reading I get experience the text in my own perspective and give my take on how I envision the world in the story. On the other hand, I also get to learn things that may never be taught to me in school. When I’m reading I get to venture into somebody else’s life through a different set of eyes. My reason for reading also plays into what role reading takes on in my life because when I’m reading I can picture the characters and the world the way that I want to. Getting involved with the story is probably the most important part of reading because at that moment you really get to let your imagination run

Reading helps in mental development and is known to stimulate the muscles of the eyes and it is also an activity that involves greater levels of concentration and adds to the conversational skills of the reader.