Cultivating the habit reading is key to development

  

Cultivating the habit of reading is key to development

Grace Naa Deisa Amon

Reading is fundamental to education and necessary for the development of every nation. Any society which ensures a culture of reading for its members creates a society that is well informed, creative and conscious of preserving knowledge. It goes along with writing at all instances in life. It is an undeniable fact that a country cannot be fully developed without a large-scale investment in her educational scheme since the breakthrough of a country is directly proportional to her educational level. This is well understandable because the state of a country to progress politically, socially, culturally and economically is affected by the fraction of its populace who are well educated.

Since the acquisition of effective reading skills has a positive effect on all school subjects, then reading is an essential condition; a thing that is absolutely necessary for human capital and global development. And books are the most essential tool for transfer of learning. Though books inspire and entertain, the development of the reader's personality is the most primary purpose of education which contributes profoundly to the development of any nation.

Impact of technology on reading today 

Though radio, TV, video, the Internet, and audio-visual aids play their supporting role in communication and education, they are only supplement to, but not substitutes for books, because the book is central and transmits information of higher order of complication with more penetration than any audio-visual aid.

These days, reading do-it-yourself books and connecting with other people from the internet helps to put people, expertise and societies together without boundaries. At the root of all that is the ability to learn to read, and read to learn

Importance of reading 

Why should we read? The benefits of reading are enormous. They include mental stimulation, stress reduction, knowledge, vocabulary expansion, memory improvement, stronger analytical thinking, improved focus and better writing skills.

There are times when reading gives you the relaxation you need to glide gently into sleep. You will suddenly discover that when a word pops up as you write a proposal, an article or a business paper among others and you crosscheck from the dictionary you will not be surprised it aptly fits in.

As you read continuously, your brain stores the words and their meanings and even their construction, expanding your vocabulary and since it is not being read as a textbook, it effortlessly stays in your brain for future use. Everyone should make reading a habit. Reading enhances your analytical thinking and reading textbooks makes your learning become easy.

As a student, reading has helped me on numerous occasions, first in making it easy as it were, to “answer exams questions appropriately” and when you forget some things learnt, how to put in an appropriate sentence to save the situation.

Rekindling reading habits 

The falling standard of education in Ghana and Africa as a continent emanates from lack of effective reading habit, perhaps in public basic schools. There is no clear evidence which proved that there are insufficient reading materials available for Ghanaian’s children to read. Ghana is blessed with pro writers and researchers. The late Prof. Kofi Awunoor, Ama Atta Aidoo, Kofi Anyidoho and some other renowned authors’ act d’oeuvre count Ghana among the best literary work producers in Africa.

Besides, Ghana has got libraries well-stocked of books in all the ten regions but one could just envisage the number of public basic school pupils who make time to read a page of a book a day. There is an evident that Ghanaians have apathy towards reading which could be ascribed as a total negligence of the basic school curriculum to match pupils’ reading aspirations. 

Majority of our youth are not reading these days so newspapers which contain loads of information are not read by them. It is time for parents to lead the way in getting children to begin reading early. 

Book fairs are great opportunities for parents to encourage their children to pick up books of their choice and join their children in beginning to appreciate books while having fun.

Apart from getting the books at discounted prizes, other teaching and learning materials are available at the book fairs for parents, teachers and educational institutions to buy to encourage, especially our children, to begin reading and for those of us who read to continue reading.

Government through the Education Ministry should also begin to buy selected books from Ghanaian writers to stock libraries across the country and for school libraries so that from an early age, our children will begin to read.

The language of the disciplines

I believe that there's no subject in the world one be adept at if you don’t know the language of that particular discipline. And it all boils down to reading. Every subject under the sun has its own vocabulary. If you want to pursue law, it’s got its own vocabulary. If you want to pursue medicine, it’s got its own vocabulary. Engineering has its own vocabulary.

Even to be a good parent demands a particular discipline which can be learned. A lot of people think they are parents just because they have children. There are ways in which one can be a superior parent. And all of that can border on reading, as we try to emulate particular people who have raised successful children, and find out how they did it. There are books now that outline the principles that help to make successful parenting.

Undoubtedly, without reading and understanding what we read, we become illiterates in many avoidable ways. And to be illiterate means to not reflect on what we do based on best practices. No man is an island, so reading is essential as it assembles the best minds to emulate in any arena.

We can’t perform competently in any great society without reading, and frankly the cause of our underdevelopment is largely due to mass illiteracy. Let's all cultivate the habit of reading so our lives can be spiced up and horizon broadened to contribute our quota to the intellectual development of the country.

The author, Grace Naa Deisa Amon is a student of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ). 

Writer’s email: naadeisagrace@gmail.com