What is the importance of reading?

Importance of reading

Reading has many benefits, it helps you build many skills and learn new things, it will take you to a whole different place. Now let’s see why reading is important. If you are not a fan of reading then this article will change your mind, reading has many benefits that we will discuss thoroughly.

What is the importance of reading?

Reading is great for many things, it improves memory, focus, helps you gain knowledge, and builds creative thinking skills, not just that there are much more and we will discuss some of them now. Besides all the benefits that reading gives, you will also have fun and enjoy your time.

1- Reading Expands the Mind:

The first thing that you will notice when you start reading is the knowledge you gain and the creative ideas that pop up in your mind. Reading will keep your brain active and creative. There are studies showing that reading can prevent Alzheimer’s disease and keep the mind healthy and young.

2- Creative Thinking:

Reading increases your creative thinking skills. When you read, you will start to imagine the events of the story, feel like you are there with and immerse yourself in the actions. You won’t feel bored when reading.

3- Reading Improve Concentration:

Reading helps you focus and train your mind to concentrate, so if you have concentration problems then you should start reading right now. When reading you have only one thing to focus on, and that’s is something we don’t do a lot nowadays because of the many things that require us to be multi-tasking. Being focused helps you finish more work faster and successfully, this includes studying to, you will be able to concentrate for a long time hence studying in fewer hours.   

4-      Gain Valuable Knowledge:

That is one benefit that everyone knows. Reading daily increases our knowledge; you will learn new words, gain knowledge about the world, history or whatever you want to learn about. The author Roald Dahl said, "If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books." One day someone asked Elon Musk how did he learn to build rockets and his answer was: "I read books."

5- Exercise Your Brain:

The English writer Joseph Addison once said about the importance of reading that "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." There are many studies that prove the importance of reading to the mind, once says that a complex network of circuits and signals in the brain is stimulated in the brain. That’s not all, it also becomes stronger with time. There was another study was conducted on a group of participants who were constructed to read a novel while measuring their brain activity. They found that when the tension of the novel increased so did the brain as more areas got activated.  That’s not all; there were also huge enhancements on the brain connectivity even after reading for days. Your brain is just like your muscles if you don’t use them they will become useless. What does that mean? If you don’t exercise your brain every day you might lose your cognitive abilities. So reading is the exercise your brain needs.

6- Improve Your Focus:

In order to succeed in our lives being able to focus for a long time is essential, Cal Newport the author wrote: "To remain valuable in our economy … you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work." Newport explained deep work as:  "Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship." He said that due to multi-tasking having this skill is really rare. Also, Microsoft conducted a study proving that people lose their focus after eight seconds. That’s why reading is important; it gives you one thing to focus on. To immerse yourself in the novel you’re reading you have to give it your full attention, even if you are reading a non-fictional book, to understand it you need to focus. 7-  improve the memory: not being able to remember is really bad, and reading fixes this problem. When you read a non-fictional book you feed your brain with much information that you need to remember. The same thing when you read a novel, you feed your brain information about the characters, plots, and subplots. So much to remember, right? Storing all of this information force your mind to create new memories and this in return opens new synapses or makes the old ones stronger.

 What is the importance of reading books?

Besides all the important things we just said like memory enhancement, creative thinking, being able to concentrate for longer times, and more. There are also more reasons to make you love reading; here are a few of them.

Why Should You be a reading lover?

1- Reading Can Give You a Greater Perspective; it makes you see what others can’t: Having a unique perspective, not just when it comes to the world but regarding everything in your life. Reading gives you the ability to think out the box, to see the world with different colors, not just black and white. Reading makes you live a life that you can't live, to see life from other people's point of view, to travel to places you haven’t gone to before.  Traveling to new places, experiencing new feelings, and adventures you haven’t felt before and without even leaving your home. You will also learn about stuff you didn’t know about, or read about places you haven’t heard about before.

2. Reading takes your mind of what’s stressing you:

Life is full of stressful things, and sometimes you want to do something that will take of all the pain and anxieties you are going through. That’s when reading comes in handy; reading will take your mind to a whole different world where all the things stressing you don’t exist. Reading makes you become calm and relaxed, it’s like a bubble protecting you from the monster you are scared of, and as you keep reading the monster will disappear. There was a study conducted on a group of people and found that reading for just 8 minutes reduces the tension of the body and slows down the heartbeats. Meaning that reading reduces the stress level. 3- Reading help you get rid of the feeling of loneliness: Feeling lonely or lost is not an alien feeling we all go through that feeling, and reading is an effective way to shut that feeling out. Having a book in your hand is like having a friend that would never leave your hand and will always give you the comfort you need When you read a book about someone else see that you are not the only one going through that situation you are going through and see how they managed to get out of it will give you hope and inspire you to face your problems.    4- Reading help you start a conversation: Have you ever been in the place of getting to know someone new and you don’t know what to say? We all have been in that situation. Reading provides you with any information that you can choose any of them to start a conversation. Imagine if the person you are talking to has read the same book that would be the best conversation, right? 5- Reading Help You build new Vocabulary:  Reading will help you learn new words and improve your vocab. And to memorize the new word you should say it out loud. Knowing many words increases your intelligence and people will take you seriously.  So in the end, reading improves our lives and it has many benefits to us and to our brains. If you haven’t started reading yet go ahead and find the right book for you. Noone hates reading you just didn’t find the right book yet, so go ahead and search for it thoroughly. A book is a great friend that we all need in our lives.

What is the importance of reading to children?

There are many studies showing that reading to children makes a huge difference to their performance. Also, children who read regularly show better performance on tests and help them build bigger vocab. Reading helps children build and gain knowledge about life and learn about other cultures and norms. It also helps them learn about other people's lives and problems, this makes them able to understand others. Reading makes children smart and kind. Also, children learn to read and speak when they hear us talking they learn from us, so to teach them how to read and understand you must read to them. Reading stories to them will teach them new words, and help them understand what they are hearing. Even if they can’t understand all the words you are saying they will try to say the same word they heard to copy what you said. If your child is still learning how to read or if the child can read you should still read to them find the books that interest them. Always make sure that your kid is reading on a regular basis. Also, make sure to read with them the books they bring home or read them a new book, this will give them a greater understanding of life. Additionally, reading helps them focus hence performing better on tests and studying.

The importance of reading aloud:

Reading aloud is really important, especially when memorizing new information. You should teach your kids to read aloud, this will help them build many skills and make them learn new vocabulary. Let them read aloud and discuss with them what they read this will enhance their conversational skills, encourage social-emotional learning, and empathy. Reading aloud is not just important for kids, adults need to read aloud to enhance social-emotional learning, learn and memorize new information. Here is some of its importance:

•         Increases attention spans.
•         Makes information easier to remember and recall.
•         Is effective for vocabulary development.
•         Develops empathy.
•         Helps children stay connected emotionally with their friends and others.
•         Reading aloud every day is the single most important thing you can do to prepare your child to learn.

The importance of reading the word of god: Reading Quran is not just because it’s obligatory, there are many benefits behind it and rewards too. Allah's prophet says: “the Quran is proof for you or against you.” Meaning that on judgment day, Quran will become a witness.

•         Reading the holy Quran will reward you:

You will be rewarded for every letter you read from the Quran. Yes, you don’t get rewarded just when you read a full surah or one aya, you get rewarded for each letter you read. Aishah said: مَن قَرَأَ حَرْفًا مِنْ كِتَابِ اللَّهِ فَلَهُ بِهِ حَسَنَةٌ وَالْحَسَنَةُ بِعَشْرِ أَمْثَالِهَا لاَ أَقُولُ الم حَرْفٌ وَلَكِنْ أَلِفٌ حَرْفٌ وَلاَمٌ حَرْفٌ وَمِيمٌ حَرْفٌ ‏ Meaning: Whoever recites a letter from Allah's Book, then he receives the reward from it, and the reward of ten the like of it. I do not say that Alif Lam Mim is a letter, but Alif is a letter, Lam is a letter and Mim is a letter

•         Reading Quran Calms your Soul and gives you peace of mind:

Reading Quran does not just give us rewards but also helps us ease our minds and feel peace, Quran removes any worries or anxiety that we are feeling. Allah says in the Quran: الَّذينَ آمَنوا وَتَطمَئِنُّ قُلوبُهُم بِذِكرِ اللَّهِ ۗ أَلا بِذِكرِ اللَّهِ تَطمَئِنُّ القُلوبُ Meaning: “Those who have believed and whose hearts are assured by the remembrance of Allah. Unquestionably, by the remembrance of Allah, hearts are assured”  (Surah Ar-Ra’ad, 13:28)

•         It’s okay to not be able to read Quran correctly, Allah will reward you:

The language of the Quran in Arabic, which is a foreign language for us, it's okay to stutter and not to read fluently. Allah knows how hard you try, so don’t be frustrated when you can’t read fluently or if you don’t understand all the words you are reading. It’s okay, don’t be sad, Allah will reward you even if you can’t read Quran right or if you are facing problems understanding what you are reading. Aishah said: الذي يقرأ القرآن وهو ماهر به مع السفرة الكرام البررة، والذي يقرأ القرآن ويتتعتع فيه وهو عليه شاق له أجران‏ Meaning: "The one who is proficient in the recitation of the Qur'an will be with the honorable and obedient scribes (angels), and he who recites the Qur'an and finds it difficult to recite, doing his best to recite it in the best way possible, will have two rewards."  (Sahih Al-Bukhari & Muslim)

•         Reading Quran will guide you:

When we feel down and want to talk to someone, searching for someone to hear our cries and guide us along the way, we can always talk to Allah. Allah will always be there for us whenever we need help and guidance. Quran is a way that Allah use to communicate with us, and you will find your answer in the Quran. Allah said in the Quran: كِتابٌ أَنزَلناهُ إِلَيكَ لِتُخرِجَ النّاسَ مِنَ الظُّلُماتِ إِلَى النّورِ Meaning: “A Book We have sent down to you so that you may bring forth mankind from the darkness into the light.”. (Surah Ibrahim, 14:1) When you read the holy Quran you will feel like Allah is talking to you, answering your call, and taking away your worries. What more do we need than having Allah to guide us all the way and answer our calls? In order to truly understand the holy Quran, you should learn Arabic, there are many ways to do so for example you could learn from Arabic books like Arabic from the beginning part 1 book. You could buy books from the Arabic market. Another easy way to learn Arabic is by taking an online course. One of the words that you will learn is as salamu alaykum in Arabic, it is just like saying Hello.

•         Allah made the Quran easy for us to understand and read.

Allah says in the Quran: وَلَقَد يَسَّرنَا القُرآنَ لِلذِّكرِ فَهَل مِن مُدَّكِرٍ Meaning: “And We have certainly made the Quran easy for remembrance, so is there any who will remember?” (Surah Al-Qamar,  54:17) Allah said more than once in Surah Al-Qamar that he made the Quran easy to read and understand. Allah also said in the Holy Quran: كِتابٌ أَنزَلناهُ إِلَيكَ مُبارَكٌ لِيَدَّبَّروا آياتِهِ وَلِيَتَذَكَّرَ أُولُو الأَلبابِ Meaning: [This is] a blessed Book which we have revealed to you, [Oh Muhammad], that they might reflect upon its verses and that those of understanding would be reminded (Surah Sad 38:29).

Questions about the importance of reading:

Asking yourself Questions while reading a book is essential to keep reminding yourself of the action and plot of the story. And also to enhance your memory and understand the purpose and message behind the novel. Reading gives you the opportunity to escape your life and experience new feelings and put yourself in the shoe of the characters, having the opportunity to live another life. Simply going through the pages will take that opportunity from you. So, in order to focus on what you are reading whether it is a fictional or non-fictional book you should always ask questions. Questions will help you immerse yourself in the story, be fully present while you are reading, and don’t get distracted.   Here are some of the questions you could ask yourself the next time you read a book:

•         If I can get only 3 things from the book, what are they? How will I apply them in daily life?
•         What are the arguments or suggestions made by the writer?
•         What problems does the writer attempt to solve?
•         What strategies does the writer use to convey the key ideas in the book?
•         What do I know about the topic of the book covers? How what the book says is different from what I originally know?
•         Are there any particular things I do not understand in the book?
•         Which part of the book do I like or dislike? And why?
•         Who is the main character?
•         What are the character’s motives?
•         What would I change about this book?
•         Does the writing remind me of anything else?
•         What is the author’s intention?
•         Where could I find out more about this subject?
•         What would I ask the author if I could?
•         Do I want to read more books like this?
•         Is the narrator reliable?