• Importance Of Reading Essay

Importance of Reading Essay

500+ words essay on reading.

Reading is a key to learning. It’s a skill that everyone should develop in their life. The ability to read enables us to discover new facts and opens the door to a new world of ideas, stories and opportunities. We can gather ample information and use it in the right direction to perform various tasks in our life. The habit of reading also increases our knowledge and makes us more intellectual and sensible. With the help of this essay on the Importance of Reading, we will help you know the benefits of reading and its various advantages in our life. Students must go through this essay in detail, as it will help them to create their own essay based on this topic.

Importance of Reading

Reading is one of the best hobbies that one can have. It’s fun to read different types of books. By reading the books, we get to know the people of different areas around the world, different cultures, traditions and much more. There is so much to explore by reading different books. They are the abundance of knowledge and are best friends of human beings. We get to know about every field and area by reading books related to it. There are various types of books available in the market, such as science and technology books, fictitious books, cultural books, historical events and wars related books etc. Also, there are many magazines and novels which people can read anytime and anywhere while travelling to utilise their time effectively.

Benefits of Reading for Students

Reading plays an important role in academics and has an impactful influence on learning. Researchers have highlighted the value of developing reading skills and the benefits of reading to children at an early age. Children who cannot read well at the end of primary school are less likely to succeed in secondary school and, in adulthood, are likely to earn less than their peers. Therefore, the focus is given to encouraging students to develop reading habits.

Reading is an indispensable skill. It is fundamentally interrelated to the process of education and to students achieving educational success. Reading helps students to learn how to use language to make sense of words. It improves their vocabulary, information-processing skills and comprehension. Discussions generated by reading in the classroom can be used to encourage students to construct meanings and connect ideas and experiences across texts. They can use their knowledge to clear their doubts and understand the topic in a better way. The development of good reading habits and skills improves students’ ability to write.

In today’s world of the modern age and digital era, people can easily access resources online for reading. The online books and availability of ebooks in the form of pdf have made reading much easier. So, everyone should build this habit of reading and devote at least 30 minutes daily. If someone is a beginner, then they can start reading the books based on the area of their interest. By doing so, they will gradually build up a habit of reading and start enjoying it.

Frequently Asked Questions on the Importance of Reading Essay

What is the importance of reading.

1. Improves general knowledge 2. Expands attention span/vocabulary 3. Helps in focusing better 4. Enhances language proficiency

What is the power of reading?

1. Develop inference 2. Improves comprehension skills 3. Cohesive learning 4. Broadens knowledge of various topics

How can reading change a student’s life?

1. Empathy towards others 2. Acquisition of qualities like kindness, courtesy

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Reading is Good Habit for Students and Children

 500+ words essay on reading is good habit.

Reading is a very good habit that one needs to develop in life. Good books can inform you, enlighten you and lead you in the right direction. There is no better companion than a good book. Reading is important because it is good for your overall well-being. Once you start reading, you experience a whole new world. When you start loving the habit of reading you eventually get addicted to it. Reading develops language skills and vocabulary. Reading books is also a way to relax and reduce stress. It is important to read a good book at least for a few minutes each day to stretch the brain muscles for healthy functioning.

reading is good habit

Benefits of Reading

Books really are your best friends as you can rely on them when you are bored, upset, depressed, lonely or annoyed. They will accompany you anytime you want them and enhance your mood. They share with you information and knowledge any time you need. Good books always guide you to the correct path in life. Following are the benefits of reading –

Self Improvement: Reading helps you develop positive thinking. Reading is important because it develops your mind and gives you excessive knowledge and lessons of life. It helps you understand the world around you better. It keeps your mind active and enhances your creative ability.

Communication Skills: Reading improves your vocabulary and develops your communication skills. It helps you learn how to use your language creatively. Not only does it improve your communication but it also makes you a better writer. Good communication is important in every aspect of life.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Increases Knowledge: Books enable you to have a glimpse into cultures, traditions, arts, history, geography, health, psychology and several other subjects and aspects of life. You get an amazing amount of knowledge and information from books.

Reduces Stress: Reading a good book takes you in a new world and helps you relieve your day to day stress. It has several positive effects on your mind, body, and soul. It stimulates your brain muscles and keeps your brain healthy and strong.

Great Pleasure: When I read a book, I read it for pleasure. I just indulge myself in reading and experience a whole new world. Once I start reading a book I get so captivated I never want to leave it until I finish. It always gives a lot of pleasure to read a good book and cherish it for a lifetime.

Boosts your Imagination and Creativity: Reading takes you to the world of imagination and enhances your creativity. Reading helps you explore life from different perspectives. While you read books you are building new and creative thoughts, images and opinions in your mind. It makes you think creatively, fantasize and use your imagination.

Develops your Analytical Skills: By active reading, you explore several aspects of life. It involves questioning what you read. It helps you develop your thoughts and express your opinions. New ideas and thoughts pop up in your mind by active reading. It stimulates and develops your brain and gives you a new perspective.

Reduces Boredom: Journeys for long hours or a long vacation from work can be pretty boring in spite of all the social sites. Books come in handy and release you from boredom.

Read Different Stages of Reading here.

The habit of reading is one of the best qualities that a person can possess. Books are known to be your best friend for a reason. So it is very important to develop a good reading habit. We must all read on a daily basis for at least 30 minutes to enjoy the sweet fruits of reading. It is a great pleasure to sit in a quiet place and enjoy reading. Reading a good book is the most enjoyable experience one can have.

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Essay About Reading

Reading is a crucial activity since it sharpens your mind and provides you with a wealth of information and life lessons. It improves your understanding of the environment around you. It keeps your brain engaged and nurtures creativity. Here are a few sample essays on the topic ‘reading’.

  • 100 Words Essay On Reading

Reading for pleasure is one of the simplest and most underrated forms of relaxation. It's a way to take a break from the world and lose yourself in another place, without ever having to leave your home. It's not just a mental escape. Reading can also be incredibly soothing for the body. When we read, our heart rate and blood pressure drop, and we actually experience a decrease in stress hormones. For me, reading is a way to recharge myself. I love losing myself in a good book, especially when I need some downtime. It's my favourite way to relax, and it never fails to help me unwind after a long day.

200 Words Essay On Reading

500 words essay on reading.

Essay About Reading

Reading has been a part of human existence since the beginning of time. It's one of the simplest and most natural ways to learn, and it's no wonder that so many people consider reading to be one of the most important things they can do. Reading offers a way to learn about the world and expand your horizons in a way that's both comfortable and safe. It's a great way to gain new perspectives without having to risk anything or make any compromises.

Benefits of Reading

There are many benefits of reading. For one, it can help improve your vocabulary. When you read, you're exposed to new words and different ways of using them. This can help you become a more articulate speaker and writer.

Reading also helps you learn about new topics and explore different points of view. You might not agree with everything you read, but that's okay. Reading allows you to consider arguments and opinions that differ from your own, and that can make you a more well-rounded thinker.

And finally, reading is just plain enjoyable. It's a great way to relax and escape from the world for a while. Whether you're reading fiction or nonfiction, biography or history, there's something for everyone in the world of books.

Though it seems like a simple enough activity, reading can actually offer a great deal of insight and understanding into different perspectives. When you read a book, you're not just absorbing the words on the page, you're also getting a glimpse into the mind of the author.

You can see the world through their eyes, and explore different cultures and lifestyles without ever having to leave your home. You can also gain an understanding of different issues and topics that you may not have otherwise been exposed to.

Different Ways To Read More

If you want to read more, there are some strategies you can use to help fit reading into your day. First, one of the most helpful things you can do is to set aside an hour each day for reading. This will help to ensure that you have time for reading consistently. You can also try making it a priority in your daily routine, such as doing it right before bed or right after you wake up in the morning.

Another helpful strategy is to find a book that piques your interest and keep it with you wherever you go. Having a book close by will make it easier for you to grab a few minutes to read here and there throughout your day. You could even try joining a local book club or starting one with friends if socialising while reading appeals to you.

Finally, try setting goals for yourself and challenge yourself by committing to reading more than you would normally think possible in a given period of time. Book clubs can be great for this too as they often have monthly challenges which can be motivating and fun!

Why It's Important To Read Regularly

Reading books is an important activity that can have many positive effects on one's life. First and foremost, reading has been proven to create more empathy in people. It is well known that those who read more books tend to be more empathetic, understanding others’ perspectives better. This means that reading can help not just our own personal growth, but also how we interact with other people, particularly strangers.

Not only this, but reading books can help us learn new skills and gain knowledge quickly. It is often said that knowledge is power, and reading can be a great source of both specialist knowledge as well as general knowledge about the world. Reading also helps us express ourselves better by teaching us new words and improving our grammar skills.

Overall, regular reading has multiple benefits for the individual reader and for society in general. As such it should be encouraged for all ages of the population, who can each get something valuable out of it.

It can be hard to find the time to read, but the benefits of reading are undeniable. Reading can help you learn new things, it can help you relax and de-stress, and it can even help improve your memory. So, if you're looking for a way to improve your life, start reading more books.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

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Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary. 

Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive. 

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Geotechnical engineer

The role of geotechnical engineer starts with reviewing the projects needed to define the required material properties. The work responsibilities are followed by a site investigation of rock, soil, fault distribution and bedrock properties on and below an area of interest. The investigation is aimed to improve the ground engineering design and determine their engineering properties that include how they will interact with, on or in a proposed construction. 

The role of geotechnical engineer in mining includes designing and determining the type of foundations, earthworks, and or pavement subgrades required for the intended man-made structures to be made. Geotechnical engineering jobs are involved in earthen and concrete dam construction projects, working under a range of normal and extreme loading conditions. 

Cartographer

How fascinating it is to represent the whole world on just a piece of paper or a sphere. With the help of maps, we are able to represent the real world on a much smaller scale. Individuals who opt for a career as a cartographer are those who make maps. But, cartography is not just limited to maps, it is about a mixture of art , science , and technology. As a cartographer, not only you will create maps but use various geodetic surveys and remote sensing systems to measure, analyse, and create different maps for political, cultural or educational purposes.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Product Manager

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.  

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Operations manager.

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Bank Probationary Officer (PO)

Investment director.

An investment director is a person who helps corporations and individuals manage their finances. They can help them develop a strategy to achieve their goals, including paying off debts and investing in the future. In addition, he or she can help individuals make informed decisions.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues. 

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

An expert in plumbing is aware of building regulations and safety standards and works to make sure these standards are upheld. Testing pipes for leakage using air pressure and other gauges, and also the ability to construct new pipe systems by cutting, fitting, measuring and threading pipes are some of the other more involved aspects of plumbing. Individuals in the plumber career path are self-employed or work for a small business employing less than ten people, though some might find working for larger entities or the government more desirable.

Construction Manager

Individuals who opt for a career as construction managers have a senior-level management role offered in construction firms. Responsibilities in the construction management career path are assigning tasks to workers, inspecting their work, and coordinating with other professionals including architects, subcontractors, and building services engineers.

Urban Planner

Urban Planning careers revolve around the idea of developing a plan to use the land optimally, without affecting the environment. Urban planning jobs are offered to those candidates who are skilled in making the right use of land to distribute the growing population, to create various communities. 

Urban planning careers come with the opportunity to make changes to the existing cities and towns. They identify various community needs and make short and long-term plans accordingly.

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description:  A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems. 

Naval Architect

A Naval Architect is a professional who designs, produces and repairs safe and sea-worthy surfaces or underwater structures. A Naval Architect stays involved in creating and designing ships, ferries, submarines and yachts with implementation of various principles such as gravity, ideal hull form, buoyancy and stability. 

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Veterinary Doctor

Pathologist.

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Speech Therapist

Gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth. 

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

Hospital Administrator

The hospital Administrator is in charge of organising and supervising the daily operations of medical services and facilities. This organising includes managing of organisation’s staff and its members in service, budgets, service reports, departmental reporting and taking reminders of patient care and services.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs. 

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Videographer

Multimedia specialist.

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications. 

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook. 

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion. 

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article. 

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Linguistic meaning is related to language or Linguistics which is the study of languages. A career as a linguistic meaning, a profession that is based on the scientific study of language, and it's a very broad field with many specialities. Famous linguists work in academia, researching and teaching different areas of language, such as phonetics (sounds), syntax (word order) and semantics (meaning). 

Other researchers focus on specialities like computational linguistics, which seeks to better match human and computer language capacities, or applied linguistics, which is concerned with improving language education. Still, others work as language experts for the government, advertising companies, dictionary publishers and various other private enterprises. Some might work from home as freelance linguists. Philologist, phonologist, and dialectician are some of Linguist synonym. Linguists can study French , German , Italian . 

Public Relation Executive

Travel journalist.

The career of a travel journalist is full of passion, excitement and responsibility. Journalism as a career could be challenging at times, but if you're someone who has been genuinely enthusiastic about all this, then it is the best decision for you. Travel journalism jobs are all about insightful, artfully written, informative narratives designed to cover the travel industry. Travel Journalist is someone who explores, gathers and presents information as a news article.

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product. 

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

Merchandiser.

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans. 

Metallurgical Engineer

A metallurgical engineer is a professional who studies and produces materials that bring power to our world. He or she extracts metals from ores and rocks and transforms them into alloys, high-purity metals and other materials used in developing infrastructure, transportation and healthcare equipment. 

Azure Administrator

An Azure Administrator is a professional responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Azure Solutions. He or she manages cloud infrastructure service instances and various cloud servers as well as sets up public and private cloud systems. 

AWS Solution Architect

An AWS Solution Architect is someone who specializes in developing and implementing cloud computing systems. He or she has a good understanding of the various aspects of cloud computing and can confidently deploy and manage their systems. He or she troubleshoots the issues and evaluates the risk from the third party. 

Computer Programmer

Careers in computer programming primarily refer to the systematic act of writing code and moreover include wider computer science areas. The word 'programmer' or 'coder' has entered into practice with the growing number of newly self-taught tech enthusiasts. Computer programming careers involve the use of designs created by software developers and engineers and transforming them into commands that can be implemented by computers. These commands result in regular usage of social media sites, word-processing applications and browsers.

ITSM Manager

Information security manager.

Individuals in the information security manager career path involves in overseeing and controlling all aspects of computer security. The IT security manager job description includes planning and carrying out security measures to protect the business data and information from corruption, theft, unauthorised access, and deliberate attack 

Business Intelligence Developer

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  • Reading is a Good Habit Essay

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An Essay On Reading Is A Good Habit

Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing (L-S-R-W) are the four skills of language learning. These are the set of four capabilities that allow an individual to comprehend and use a spoken language for proper and effective interpersonal communication. Reading is considered as one of the best habits anyone can possess. Reading helps a great deal in building our confidence, reduces stress and puts us in a better mood. It also develops our imagination and provides us with a fortune of knowledge. It is rightly said that books are our best friend as reading helps build up our wisdom and thinking capabilities. By developing the habit of reading, one can gain confidence in learning any language. The interest in reading, like any other habit, comes with time. Once a person starts reading, it becomes a part of habit and he/she starts to explore a whole new world.

Reading good books has a plethora of advantages. The habit of reading broadens our horizons and helps us become a better person in life. It also helps in developing a fresh viewpoint of life. The more we read, the more we fall in love with reading. It helps to develop vocabulary and language abilities. Reading is also one of the best ways to reduce anxiety as it provides relaxation and recreation. A book puts us in a better mood and allows us to have a strong imagination. At the end of a hectic and stressful day, all we need is a good book to help us rejuvenate and momentarily escape from the realities of life. 

The habit of reading must be inculcated in children from a young age. Reading is a great habit from the learning point of view as it boosts the understanding of language, improves vocabulary, helps in improving speaking and writing skills, etc. While reading a book, the plot and its characters hover in our imagination. It is said that reading builds imagination power more than any other form of activity. Anyone who has good reading skills shows indication of higher intelligence as reading helps to broaden our wisdom and knowledge to a great extent. It not only boosts our confidence but personality too. 

One of the most beneficial habits one can have is reading. It expands your creativity and provides you with a wealth of information. Reading helps you create confidence and improve your attitude, thus books are your best friend or partner. When you start reading every day, you'll discover a whole new world of information.

When you make it a practice to read every day, you will become addicted to it. Reading can help you develop cognitively and offer you a fresh perspective on life. Good novels can have a great impact on people and lead you down the correct path in life. The more time you spend reading, the more you will fall in love with it. The more time you spend reading, the more you will fall in love with it. Reading can help you improve your vocabulary and linguistic skills. Reading can help you unwind and de-stress.

Reading boosts your creativity and gives you a greater grasp of life. Reading also encourages you to write, and if you do so, you will undoubtedly fall in love with the craft. If you want to create excellent habits in your life, reading should be at the top of your list because it is essential to a person's general growth and development.

Good books will always point you in the right direction. The following are some of the advantages of reading books:

Self-improvement: Reading can help you think more positively. Reading is important because it molds your thinking and provides you with a wealth of information and life lessons. Books will help you have a better understanding of the world around you from a new perspective. It keeps your mind active, healthy, and helps you be more creative.

Communication Skills: Reading increases your vocabulary, enhances your language skills, and improves your communication skills. It teaches you how to be more creative with your thoughts. It not only improves your communication skills, but it also helps you improve your writing skills. In every element of life, effective communication is essential.

Increases your Understanding: Books provide you a foundational understanding of civilizations, customs, the arts, history, geography, health, psychology, and a variety of other topics and elements of life. Books provide an unlimited amount of information and wisdom. 

Reduces Stress: Reading a good book transports you to another world and helps you escape the stresses of everyday life. There are a number of beneficial impacts on your mind, body, and soul that aid with stress relief. It keeps your mind healthy and powerful by stimulating your brain muscles to perform efficiently.

Great Pleasure: Anyone who reads a book for pleasure does so. They delight in reading and gain access to a whole new universe. When you begin reading a book, you will become so engrossed in it that you will not want to put it down until you have finished it.

Enhances your Imagination and Creativity: Reading enhances your imagination and creativity by transporting you to a realm of imagination and, in some ways, increasing your creativity. Reading allows you to examine life from several perspectives. You generate inventive and creative thoughts, visions, and opinions in your mind while reading books. It encourages you to think outside of the box, imagine, and use your imagination.

Enhances your Analytical Abilities: Active reading allows you to gain access to a variety of viewpoints on life. It aids in the analysis of your thoughts and the expression of your opinions. Active reading brings new ideas and thoughts to mind. It activates and alters your brain, allowing you to see things from a different perspective.

Boredom is Lessened: Despite all the other social activities, long-distance travel or a protracted vacation from work can be tedious. In such instances, books come in handy and keep you from being bored.

Reading books adds knowledge and plays a great role in education. Whether it is fiction or nonfiction, we get to learn a great deal from books. It exposes us to the outer world which helps acquire sensibility and understanding of different social subjects. It is therefore very important to develop a good reading habit. We should all read daily for at least 30 minutes to enjoy the wonderful beneficial perks of reading. It is a great happiness to live in a calm place and to enjoy the moments of reading. Reading a good and informative book is one of the most rejuvenating and enthusiastic experiences a person can have. 

One must inculcate the habit of reading. Reading is said to be a great mental exercise. Reading also helps us release boredom. Reading allows us to sleep better. Hence, we must develop the habit of reading books before bedtime. Even in this digital age where any information is just a click away, reading has its own charm. The benefits of reading are irreplaceable as the detailed knowledge it provides is unmatched to anything we read on the internet. Happy reading!

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FAQs on Reading is a Good Habit Essay

1. Why is the habit of reading so important?

Reading is important as it develops our thinking capacity and gives important life lessons. Reading molds our personality and makes us a better person. It also enhances our creativity and keeps our minds healthy and active. Reading improves communication and vocabulary skills. Whenever you try to speak in front of everyone, you are unable to speak proper English. This habit of speaking fluent English can only be corrected with the help of reading books regularly and speaking in English with your peers.

2. Why is the habit of reading declining?

The habit of reading is gradually declining. The advent of the internet is often described as the reason behind the changing habits of reading. Nowadays, most people go to the internet for information rather than reading books. The deterioration in reading habits can also lead to a decline in the world’s cultural development. Hence, people should give reading the importance it deserves. Accordingly, people are becoming lazier and not wanting to read as they find it a waste of time. The students nowadays find newspapers to be boring and they perceive mobile applications of new channels to be the ultimate source of news information.

3. What are the difficulties you will face if you don’t read?

If a student is unwilling to read and speak English or any other languages they intend to learn, then he or she will never be able to be creative and innovative in their approach to any other aspect of life. Reading opens up with the mind of the people and leads them to understand the concept of vocabulary and innovation. A lot of students struggle with their vocabulary and grammar. All of this is just done to help the students improve their speaking ability and experience. If you don't read then you won't be able to write good English literature answers in school as you won't be able to manage the content well.

5.2 Effective Reading Strategies

Questions to Consider:

  • What methods can you incorporate into your routine to allow adequate time for reading?
  • What are the benefits and approaches to active reading?
  • Do your courses or major have specific reading requirements?

Allowing Adequate Time for Reading

You should determine the reading requirements and expectations for every class very early in the semester. You also need to understand why you are reading the particular text you are assigned. Do you need to read closely for minute details that determine cause and effect? Or is your instructor asking you to skim several sources so you become more familiar with the topic? Knowing this reasoning will help you decide your timing, what notes to take, and how best to undertake the reading assignment.

Depending on the makeup of your schedule, you may end up reading both primary sources—such as legal documents, historic letters, or diaries—as well as textbooks, articles, and secondary sources, such as summaries or argumentative essays that use primary sources to stake a claim. You may also need to read current journalistic texts to stay current in local or global affairs. A realistic approach to scheduling your time to allow you to read and review all the reading you have for the semester will help you accomplish what can sometimes seem like an overwhelming task.

When you allow adequate time in your hectic schedule for reading, you are investing in your own success. Reading isn’t a magic pill, but it may seem like it when you consider all the benefits people reap from this ordinary practice. Famous successful people throughout history have been voracious readers. In fact, former U.S. president Harry Truman once said, “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” Writer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, inventor, and also former U.S. president Thomas Jefferson claimed “I cannot live without books” at a time when keeping and reading books was an expensive pastime. Knowing what it meant to be kept from the joys of reading, 19th-century abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” And finally, George R. R. Martin, the prolific author of the wildly successful Game of Thrones empire, declared, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.”

You can make time for reading in a number of ways that include determining your usual reading pace and speed, scheduling active reading sessions, and practicing recursive reading strategies.

Determining Reading Speed and Pacing

To determine your reading speed, select a section of text—passages in a textbook or pages in a novel. Time yourself reading that material for exactly 5 minutes, and note how much reading you accomplished in those 5 minutes. Multiply the amount of reading you accomplished in 5 minutes by 12 to determine your average reading pace (5 times 12 equals the 60 minutes of an hour). Of course, your reading pace will be different and take longer if you are taking notes while you read, but this calculation of reading pace gives you a good way to estimate your reading speed that you can adapt to other forms of reading.

So, for instance, if Marta was able to read 4 pages of a dense novel for her English class in 5 minutes, she should be able to read about 48 pages in one hour. Knowing this, Marta can accurately determine how much time she needs to devote to finishing the novel within a set amount of time, instead of just guessing. If the novel Marta is reading is 497 pages, then Marta would take the total page count (497) and divide that by her hourly reading rate (48 pages/hour) to determine that she needs about 10 to 11 hours overall. To finish the novel spread out over two weeks, Marta needs to read a little under an hour a day to accomplish this goal.

Calculating your reading rate in this manner does not take into account days where you’re too distracted and you have to reread passages or days when you just aren’t in the mood to read. And your reading rate will likely vary depending on how dense the content you’re reading is (e.g., a complex textbook vs. a comic book). Your pace may slow down somewhat if you are not very interested in what the text is about. What this method will help you do is be realistic about your reading time as opposed to waging a guess based on nothing and then becoming worried when you have far more reading to finish than the time available.

Chapter 3 , offers more detail on how best to determine your speed from one type of reading to the next so you are better able to schedule your reading.

Scheduling Set Times for Active Reading

Active reading takes longer than reading through passages without stopping. You may not need to read your latest sci-fi series actively while you’re lounging on the beach, but many other reading situations demand more attention from you. Active reading is particularly important for college courses. You are a scholar actively engaging with the text by posing questions, seeking answers, and clarifying any confusing elements. Plan to spend at least twice as long to read actively than to read passages without taking notes or otherwise marking select elements of the text.

To determine the time you need for active reading, use the same calculations you use to determine your traditional reading speed and double it. Remember that you need to determine your reading pace for all the classes you have in a particular semester and multiply your speed by the number of classes you have that require different types of reading.

Practicing Recursive Reading Strategies

One fact about reading for college courses that may become frustrating is that, in a way, it never ends. For all the reading you do, you end up doing even more rereading. It may be the same content, but you may be reading the passage more than once to detect the emphasis the writer places on one aspect of the topic or how frequently the writer dismisses a significant counterargument. This rereading is called recursive reading.

For most of what you read at the college level, you are trying to make sense of the text for a specific purpose—not just because the topic interests or entertains you. You need your full attention to decipher everything that’s going on in complex reading material—and you even need to be considering what the writer of the piece may not be including and why. This is why reading for comprehension is recursive.

Specifically, this boils down to seeing reading not as a formula but as a process that is far more circular than linear. You may read a selection from beginning to end, which is an excellent starting point, but for comprehension, you’ll need to go back and reread passages to determine meaning and make connections between the reading and the bigger learning environment that led you to the selection—that may be a single course or a program in your college, or it may be the larger discipline, such as all biologists or the community of scholars studying beach erosion.

People often say writing is rewriting. For college courses, reading is rereading.

Strong readers engage in numerous steps, sometimes combining more than one step simultaneously, but knowing the steps nonetheless. They include, not always in this order:

  • bringing any prior knowledge about the topic to the reading session,
  • asking yourself pertinent questions, both orally and in writing, about the content you are reading,
  • inferring and/or implying information from what you read,
  • learning unfamiliar discipline-specific terms,
  • evaluating what you are reading, and eventually,
  • applying what you’re reading to other learning and life situations you encounter.

Let’s break these steps into manageable chunks, because you are actually doing quite a lot when you read.

Accessing Prior Knowledge

When you read, you naturally think of anything else you may know about the topic, but when you read deliberately and actively, you make yourself more aware of accessing this prior knowledge. Have you ever watched a documentary about this topic? Did you study some aspect of it in another class? Do you have a hobby that is somehow connected to this material? All of this thinking will help you make sense of what you are reading.

Application

Imagining that you were given a chapter to read in your American history class about the Gettysburg Address, write down what you already know about this historic document. How might thinking through this prior knowledge help you better understand the text?

Asking Questions

Humans are naturally curious beings. As you read actively, you should be asking questions about the topic you are reading. Don’t just say the questions in your mind; write them down. You may ask: Why is this topic important? What is the relevance of this topic currently? Was this topic important a long time ago but irrelevant now? Why did my professor assign this reading?

You need a place where you can actually write down these questions; a separate page in your notes is a good place to begin. If you are taking notes on your computer, start a new document and write down the questions. Leave some room to answer the questions when you begin and again after you read.

Inferring and Implying

When you read, you can take the information on the page and infer , or conclude responses to related challenges from evidence or from your own reasoning. A student will likely be able to infer what material the professor will include on an exam by taking good notes throughout the classes leading up to the test.

Writers may imply information without directly stating a fact for a variety of reasons. Sometimes a writer may not want to come out explicitly and state a bias, but may imply or hint at his or her preference for one political party or another. You have to read carefully to find implications because they are indirect, but watching for them will help you comprehend the whole meaning of a passage.

Learning Vocabulary

Vocabulary specific to certain disciplines helps practitioners in that field engage and communicate with each other. Few people beyond undertakers and archeologists likely use the term sarcophagus in everyday communications, but for those disciplines, it is a meaningful distinction. Looking at the example, you can use context clues to figure out the meaning of the term sarcophagus because it is something undertakers and/or archeologists would recognize. At the very least, you can guess that it has something to do with death. As a potential professional in the field you’re studying, you need to know the lingo. You may already have a system in place to learn discipline-specific vocabulary, so use what you know works for you. Two strong strategies are to look up words in a dictionary (online or hard copy) to ensure you have the exact meaning for your discipline and to keep a dedicated list of words you see often in your reading. You can list the words with a short definition so you have a quick reference guide to help you learn the vocabulary.

Intelligent people always question and evaluate. This doesn’t mean they don’t trust others; they just need verification of facts to understand a topic well. It doesn’t make sense to learn incomplete or incorrect information about a subject just because you didn’t take the time to evaluate all the sources at your disposal. When early explorers were afraid to sail the world for fear of falling off the edge, they weren’t stupid; they just didn’t have all the necessary data to evaluate the situation.

When you evaluate a text, you are seeking to understand the presented topic. Depending on how long the text is, you will perform a number of steps and repeat many of these steps to evaluate all the elements the author presents. When you evaluate a text, you need to do the following:

  • Scan the title and all headings.
  • Read through the entire passage fully.
  • Question what main point the author is making.
  • Decide who the audience is.
  • Identify what evidence/support the author uses.
  • Consider if the author presents a balanced perspective on the main point.
  • Recognize if the author introduced any biases in the text.

When you go through a text looking for each of these elements, you need to go beyond just answering the surface question; for instance, the audience may be a specific field of scientists, but could anyone else understand the text with some explanation? Why would that be important?

Analysis Question

Think of an article you need to read for a class. Take the steps above on how to evaluate a text, and apply the steps to the article. When you accomplish the task in each step, ask yourself and take notes to answer the question: Why is this important? For example, when you read the title, does that give you any additional information that will help you comprehend the text? If the text were written for a different audience, what might the author need to change to accommodate that group? How does an author’s bias distort an argument? This deep evaluation allows you to fully understand the main ideas and place the text in context with other material on the same subject, with current events, and within the discipline.

When you learn something new, it always connects to other knowledge you already have. One challenge we have is applying new information. It may be interesting to know the distance to the moon, but how do we apply it to something we need to do? If your biology instructor asked you to list several challenges of colonizing Mars and you do not know much about that planet’s exploration, you may be able to use your knowledge of how far Earth is from the moon to apply it to the new task. You may have to read several other texts in addition to reading graphs and charts to find this information.

That was the challenge the early space explorers faced along with myriad unknowns before space travel was a more regular occurrence. They had to take what they already knew and could study and read about and apply it to an unknown situation. These explorers wrote down their challenges, failures, and successes, and now scientists read those texts as a part of the ever-growing body of text about space travel. Application is a sophisticated level of thinking that helps turn theory into practice and challenges into successes.

Preparing to Read for Specific Disciplines in College

Different disciplines in college may have specific expectations, but you can depend on all subjects asking you to read to some degree. In this college reading requirement, you can succeed by learning to read actively, researching the topic and author, and recognizing how your own preconceived notions affect your reading. Reading for college isn’t the same as reading for pleasure or even just reading to learn something on your own because you are casually interested.

In college courses, your instructor may ask you to read articles, chapters, books, or primary sources (those original documents about which we write and study, such as letters between historic figures or the Declaration of Independence). Your instructor may want you to have a general background on a topic before you dive into that subject in class, so that you know the history of a topic, can start thinking about it, and can engage in a class discussion with more than a passing knowledge of the issue.

If you are about to participate in an in-depth six-week consideration of the U.S. Constitution but have never read it or anything written about it, you will have a hard time looking at anything in detail or understanding how and why it is significant. As you can imagine, a great deal has been written about the Constitution by scholars and citizens since the late 1700s when it was first put to paper (that’s how they did it then). While the actual document isn’t that long (about 12–15 pages depending on how it is presented), learning the details on how it came about, who was involved, and why it was and still is a significant document would take a considerable amount of time to read and digest. So, how do you do it all? Especially when you may have an instructor who drops hints that you may also love to read a historic novel covering the same time period . . . in your spare time , not required, of course! It can be daunting, especially if you are taking more than one course that has time-consuming reading lists. With a few strategic techniques, you can manage it all, but know that you must have a plan and schedule your required reading so you are also able to pick up that recommended historic novel—it may give you an entirely new perspective on the issue.

Strategies for Reading in College Disciplines

No universal law exists for how much reading instructors and institutions expect college students to undertake for various disciplines. Suffice it to say, it’s a LOT.

For most students, it is the volume of reading that catches them most off guard when they begin their college careers. A full course load might require 10–15 hours of reading per week, some of that covering content that will be more difficult than the reading for other courses.

You cannot possibly read word-for-word every single document you need to read for all your classes. That doesn’t mean you give up or decide to only read for your favorite classes or concoct a scheme to read 17 percent for each class and see how that works for you. You need to learn to skim, annotate, and take notes. All of these techniques will help you comprehend more of what you read, which is why we read in the first place. We’ll talk more later about annotating and note-taking, but for now consider what you know about skimming as opposed to active reading.

Skimming is not just glancing over the words on a page (or screen) to see if any of it sticks. Effective skimming allows you to take in the major points of a passage without the need for a time-consuming reading session that involves your active use of notations and annotations. Often you will need to engage in that painstaking level of active reading, but skimming is the first step—not an alternative to deep reading. The fact remains that neither do you need to read everything nor could you possibly accomplish that given your limited time. So learn this valuable skill of skimming as an accompaniment to your overall study tool kit, and with practice and experience, you will fully understand how valuable it is.

When you skim, look for guides to your understanding: headings, definitions, pull quotes, tables, and context clues. Textbooks are often helpful for skimming—they may already have made some of these skimming guides in bold or a different color, and chapters often follow a predictable outline. Some even provide an overview and summary for sections or chapters. Use whatever you can get, but don’t stop there. In textbooks that have some reading guides, or especially in text that does not, look for introductory words such as First or The purpose of this article  . . . or summary words such as In conclusion  . . . or Finally . These guides will help you read only those sentences or paragraphs that will give you the overall meaning or gist of a passage or book.

Now move to the meat of the passage. You want to take in the reading as a whole. For a book, look at the titles of each chapter if available. Read each chapter’s introductory paragraph and determine why the writer chose this particular order. Depending on what you’re reading, the chapters may be only informational, but often you’re looking for a specific argument. What position is the writer claiming? What support, counterarguments, and conclusions is the writer presenting?

Don’t think of skimming as a way to buzz through a boring reading assignment. It is a skill you should master so you can engage, at various levels, with all the reading you need to accomplish in college. End your skimming session with a few notes—terms to look up, questions you still have, and an overall summary. And recognize that you likely will return to that book or article for a more thorough reading if the material is useful.

Active Reading Strategies

Active reading differs significantly from skimming or reading for pleasure. You can think of active reading as a sort of conversation between you and the text (maybe between you and the author, but you don’t want to get the author’s personality too involved in this metaphor because that may skew your engagement with the text).

When you sit down to determine what your different classes expect you to read and you create a reading schedule to ensure you complete all the reading, think about when you should read the material strategically, not just how to get it all done . You should read textbook chapters and other reading assignments before you go into a lecture about that information. Don’t wait to see how the lecture goes before you read the material, or you may not understand the information in the lecture. Reading before class helps you put ideas together between your reading and the information you hear and discuss in class.

Different disciplines naturally have different types of texts, and you need to take this into account when you schedule your time for reading class material. For example, you may look at a poem for your world literature class and assume that it will not take you long to read because it is relatively short compared to the dense textbook you have for your economics class. But reading and understanding a poem can take a considerable amount of time when you realize you may need to stop numerous times to review the separate word meanings and how the words form images and connections throughout the poem.

The SQ3R Reading Strategy

You may have heard of the SQ3R method for active reading in your early education. This valuable technique is perfect for college reading. The title stands for S urvey, Q uestion, R ead, R ecite, R eview, and you can use the steps on virtually any assigned passage. Designed by Francis Pleasant Robinson in his 1961 book Effective Study, the active reading strategy gives readers a systematic way to work through any reading material.

Survey is similar to skimming. You look for clues to meaning by reading the titles, headings, introductions, summary, captions for graphics, and keywords. You can survey almost anything connected to the reading selection, including the copyright information, the date of the journal article, or the names and qualifications of the author(s). In this step, you decide what the general meaning is for the reading selection.

Question is your creation of questions to seek the main ideas, support, examples, and conclusions of the reading selection. Ask yourself these questions separately. Try to create valid questions about what you are about to read that have come into your mind as you engaged in the Survey step. Try turning the headings of the sections in the chapter into questions. Next, how does what you’re reading relate to you, your school, your community, and the world?

Read is when you actually read the passage. Try to find the answers to questions you developed in the previous step. Decide how much you are reading in chunks, either by paragraph for more complex readings or by section or even by an entire chapter. When you finish reading the selection, stop to make notes. Answer the questions by writing a note in the margin or other white space of the text.

You may also carefully underline or highlight text in addition to your notes. Use caution here that you don’t try to rush this step by haphazardly circling terms or the other extreme of underlining huge chunks of text. Don’t over-mark. You aren’t likely to remember what these cryptic marks mean later when you come back to use this active reading session to study. The text is the source of information—your marks and notes are just a way to organize and make sense of that information.

Recite means to speak out loud. By reciting, you are engaging other senses to remember the material—you read it (visual) and you said it (auditory). Stop reading momentarily in the step to answer your questions or clarify confusing sentences or paragraphs. You can recite a summary of what the text means to you. If you are not in a place where you can verbalize, such as a library or classroom, you can accomplish this step adequately by  saying  it in your head; however, to get the biggest bang for your buck, try to find a place where you can speak aloud. You may even want to try explaining the content to a friend.

Review is a recap. Go back over what you read and add more notes, ensuring you have captured the main points of the passage, identified the supporting evidence and examples, and understood the overall meaning. You may need to repeat some or all of the SQR3 steps during your review depending on the length and complexity of the material. Before you end your active reading session, write a short (no more than one page is optimal) summary of the text you read.

Reading Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary sources are original documents we study and from which we glean information; primary sources include letters, first editions of books, legal documents, and a variety of other texts. When scholars look at these documents to understand a period in history or a scientific challenge and then write about their findings, the scholar’s article is considered a secondary source. Readers have to keep several factors in mind when reading both primary and secondary sources.

Primary sources may contain dated material we now know is inaccurate. It may contain personal beliefs and biases the original writer didn’t intent to be openly published, and it may even present fanciful or creative ideas that do not support current knowledge. Readers can still gain great insight from primary sources, but readers need to understand the context from which the writer of the primary source wrote the text.

Likewise, secondary sources are inevitably another person’s perspective on the primary source, so a reader of secondary sources must also be aware of potential biases or preferences the secondary source writer inserts in the writing that may persuade an incautious reader to interpret the primary source in a particular manner.

For example, if you were to read a secondary source that is examining the U.S. Declaration of Independence (the primary source), you would have a much clearer idea of how the secondary source scholar presented the information from the primary source if you also read the Declaration for yourself instead of trusting the other writer’s interpretation. Most scholars are honest in writing secondary sources, but you as a reader of the source are trusting the writer to present a balanced perspective of the primary source. When possible, you should attempt to read a primary source in conjunction with the secondary source. The Internet helps immensely with this practice.

What Students Say

  • How engaging the material is or how much I enjoy reading it.
  • Whether or not the course is part of my major.
  • Whether or not the instructor assesses knowledge from the reading (through quizzes, for example), or requires assignments based on the reading.
  • Whether or not knowledge or information from the reading is required to participate in lecture.
  • I read all of the assigned material.
  • I read most of the assigned material.
  • I skim the text and read the captions, examples, or summaries.
  • I use a systematic method such as the Cornell method or something similar.
  • I highlight or underline all the important information.
  • I create outlines and/or note-cards.
  • I use an app or program.
  • I write notes in my text (print or digital).
  • I don’t have a style. I just write down what seems important.
  • I don't take many notes.

You can also take the anonymous What Students Say surveys to add your voice to this textbook. Your responses will be included in updates.

Students offered their views on these questions, and the results are displayed in the graphs below.

What is the most influential factor in how thoroughly you read the material for a given course?

What best describes your reading approach for required texts/materials for your classes?

What best describes your note-taking style?

Researching Topic and Author

During your preview stage, sometimes called pre-reading, you can easily pick up on information from various sources that may help you understand the material you’re reading more fully or place it in context with other important works in the discipline. If your selection is a book, flip it over or turn to the back pages and look for an author’s biography or note from the author. See if the book itself contains any other information about the author or the subject matter.

The main things you need to recall from your reading in college are the topics covered and how the information fits into the discipline. You can find these parts throughout the textbook chapter in the form of headings in larger and bold font, summary lists, and important quotations pulled out of the narrative. Use these features as you read to help you determine what the most important ideas are.

Remember, many books use quotations about the book or author as testimonials in a marketing approach to sell more books, so these may not be the most reliable sources of unbiased opinions, but it’s a start. Sometimes you can find a list of other books the author has written near the front of a book. Do you recognize any of the other titles? Can you do an Internet search for the name of the book or author? Go beyond the search results that want you to buy the book and see if you can glean any other relevant information about the author or the reading selection. Beyond a standard Internet search, try the library article database. These are more relevant to academic disciplines and contain resources you typically will not find in a standard search engine. If you are unfamiliar with how to use the library database, ask a reference librarian on campus. They are often underused resources that can point you in the right direction.

Understanding Your Own Preset Ideas on a Topic

Laura really enjoys learning about environmental issues. She has read many books and watched numerous televised documentaries on this topic and actively seeks out additional information on the environment. While Laura’s interest can help her understand a new reading encounter about the environment, Laura also has to be aware that with this interest, she also brings forward her preset ideas and biases about the topic. Sometimes these prejudices against other ideas relate to religion or nationality or even just tradition. Without evidence, thinking the way we always have is not a good enough reason; evidence can change, and at the very least it needs honest review and assessment to determine its validity. Ironically, we may not want to learn new ideas because that may mean we would have to give up old ideas we have already mastered, which can be a daunting prospect.

With every reading situation about the environment, Laura needs to remain open-minded about what she is about to read and pay careful attention if she begins to ignore certain parts of the text because of her preconceived notions. Learning new information can be very difficult if you balk at ideas that are different from what you’ve always thought. You may have to force yourself to listen to a different viewpoint multiple times to make sure you are not closing your mind to a viable solution your mindset does not currently allow.

Can you think of times you have struggled reading college content for a course? Which of these strategies might have helped you understand the content? Why do you think those strategies would work?

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Reading and making notes

  • Introduction

Setting reading goals

Choosing the right texts, how many sources should you read, going beyond the reading list, active reading, reading techniques, common abbreviations in academic texts.

  • Effective note-making
  • Reading e-books for university study
  • Using and evaluating websites

reading is useful essay

This guide will suggest ways for you to improve your reading skills and to read in a more focused and selective manner.

  • Reading academic texts (video) Watch this brief video tutorial for more on the topic.
  • Reading academic texts (transcript) Read along while watching the video tutorial.
  • The best file formats and how to use them An interactive guide by the Technology Enhanced Learning team on the key features of alternative formats (such as PDF and ePUB), and how to make the most of these in developing your reading habits.

Before starting to read you need to consider why you are reading and what you are trying to learn. You will need to vary the way you read accordingly.

  • If you are reading for general interest and to acquire background information for lectures you will need to read the topic widely but with not much depth.
  • If you are reading for an essay you will need to focus the reading around the essay question and may need to study a small area of the subject in great depth. Jot down the essay question, make a note of any questions you have about it, and don't get side-tracked and waste time on non-relevant issues.

Below is an excellent short video tutorial on  reading and notemaking  developed by the Learning Development team at the University of Leicester.

  • Reading and note making (video) Video tutorial from the Study Advice Team.
  • Researching your assignment (video) A brief screencast on what you need to think about when starting your research.
  • Researching for your assignment (transcript) Read along while watching the video tutorial.

It is unlikely that you will be able - or be expected - to read all the books and articles on your reading list. You will be limited by time and by the availability of the material.

To decide whether a book is relevant and useful:

  • Look at the author's name, the title and the date of publication. Is it essential reading? Is it out of date?
  • Read the publisher's blurb on the cover or look through the editor's introduction to see whether it is relevant.
  • Look at the contents page. Does it cover what you want? Is it at the right level? Are there too few pages on the topic - or too many?
  • Look through the introduction to get an idea of the author's approach.
  • Look up an item in the index (preferably something you know a bit about) and read through one or two paragraphs to see how the author deals with the material.
  • Look though the bibliography to see the range of the author's sources.
  • Are the examples, illustrations, diagrams etc. easy to follow and helpful for your purpose?

To select useful articles from journals or research papers :

  • Read the summary or abstract. Is it relevant?
  • Look at the Conclusions and skim-read the Discussion, looking at headings. Is it worth reading carefully because it is relevant or interesting?
  • Look through the Introduction. Does it summarise the field in a helpful way? Does it provide a useful literature review?
  • It is a seminal piece of work – essential reading.
  • It is highly relevant to your essay, etc.
  • It is likely that you can get ideas from it.
  • There is nothing else available and you are going to have to make the most of this.
  • It is so interesting that you can't put it down!

If there is no reading list...

  • Use the library website and look up  Subject help .
  • Find a general textbook on the subject.
  • Use encyclopaedias and subject based dictionaries.
  • Do a web search BUT stay focused on your topic AND think about the reliability of the web sites. (For help with this, see the Library's guide to  Evaluating websites .)
  • Browse the relevant shelves in the library and look for related topics.
  • Ask your tutor for a suggestion for where to start.
  • The Library also have advice on how to  and a series of brief videos  showing you how to find and access Library resources.
  • To help you decide whether a source is appropriate for academic research, try this short training resource from the University of Manchester -  Know your sources 
  • Subject guides Guides to specialist resources in subjects studied at the University.
  • Evaluating websites Hints on assessing the reliability of information you find on the Internet.
  • Library videos A link to Library videos on how to use the Library and access resources
  • Know your sources On-line training tutorial from Manchester University on evaluating academic sources

reading is useful essay

It is not a good idea to rely on 1 or 2 sources very heavily as this shows a lack of wider reading, and can mean you just get a limited view without thinking of an argument of your own.

Nor is it useful (or possible) to read everything on the reading list and try to fit it all into your assignment. This usually leads to losing your own thoughts under a mass of reading.

The best way is to be strategic about your reading and identify what you need to find out and what the best sources to use to find this information.

It can be better to read less and try to think about, and understand, the issues more clearly - take time to make sure you really get the ideas rather than reading more and more which can increase your confusion.

  • Use the Library catalogue to find other books on that topic. Either click on the subject headings in the full record of the books you wanted; or make a note of their Call Numbers and check on the shelves for similar titles.
  • Look for relevant journal articles using the Summon search box on the Library homepage or using key resources listed on the guide for your subject.
  • Use online resources BUT always evaluate them to see if they are appropriate for academic purposes. (For help with this, see the Library's guide to  Evaluating websites .)  
  • Ask around to see if any of your fellow students has the books you need. You may be able to borrow them briefly to photocopy any material you need. But be careful to return it promptly - and if you lend a Library book taken out with your ticket to someone else, make sure they take it back on time, or your account will be blocked!
  • Don't forget to ask your friendly Academic Liaison Librarian for advice - they are happy to help you find relevant, academic sources for your assignments.
  • Contact your Academic Liaison Librarian

Keep focused on your reading goals. One way to do this is to ask questions as you read and try to read actively and creatively. It is a good idea to think of your own subject related questions but the following may be generally useful

reading is useful essay

  • What do I want to know about?
  • What is the main idea behind the writing?
  • What conclusions can be drawn from the evidence?
  • In research, what are the major findings?

Questioning the writing

  • What are the limitations or flaws in the evidence?
  • Can the theory be disproved or is it too general?
  • What examples would prove the opposite theory?
  • What would you expect to come next?
  • What would you like to ask the author?

Forming your own opinion

  • How does this fit in with my own theory/beliefs?
  • How does it fit with the opposite theory/beliefs?
  • Is my own theory/beliefs still valid?
  • Am I surprised?
  • Do I agree?

Your reading speed is generally limited by your thinking speed. If ideas or information requires lots of understanding then it is necessary to read slowly. Choosing a reading technique must depend upon why you are reading:

  • To enjoy the language or the narrative.
  • As a source of information and/or ideas.
  • To discover the scope of a subject - before a lecture, seminar or research project.
  • To compare theories or approaches by different authors or researchers.
  • For a particular piece of work e.g. essay, dissertation.

It is important to keep your aims in mind. Most reading will require a mixture of techniques e.g. scanning to find the critical passages followed by reflective reading.

Good for searching for particular information or to see if a passage is relevant:

  • Look up a word or subject in the index or look for the chapter most likely to contain the required information.
  • Use a pencil and run it down the page to keep your eyes focusing on the search for key words

Skim reading

Good to quickly gain an overview, familiarise yourself with a chapter or an article or to understand the structure for later note-taking

  • Don't read every word.
  • Do read summaries, heading and subheadings.
  • Look at tables, diagrams, illustrations, etc.
  • Read first sentences of paragraphs to see what they are about.
  • If the material is useful or interesting, decide whether just some sections are relevant or whether you need to read it all.

Reflective or critical reading

Good for building your understanding and knowledge.

  • Think about the questions you want to answer.
  • Read actively in the search for answers.
  • Look for an indication of the chapter's structure or any other "map" provided by the author.
  • reasons, qualifications, evidence, examples...
  • Look for "signposts" –sentences or phrases to indicate the structure e.g. "There are three main reasons, First.. Secondly.. Thirdly.." or to emphasise the main ideas e.g. "Most importantly.." "To summarise.."
  • Connecting words may indicate separate steps in the argument e.g. "but", "on the other hand", "furthermore", "however"..
  • After you have read a chunk, make brief notes remembering to record the page number as well as the complete reference (Author, title, date, journal/publisher, etc)
  • At the end of the chapter or article put the book aside and go over your notes, to ensure that they adequately reflect the main points.
  • Ask yourself - how has this added to your knowledge?
  • Will it help you to make out an argument for your essay?
  • Do you agree with the arguments, research methods, evidence..?
  • Add any of your own ideas – indicating that they are YOUR ideas use [ ] or different colours.

Rapid reading

Good for scanning and skim-reading,  but  remember that it is usually more important to understand what you read than to read quickly. Reading at speed is unlikely to work for reflective, critical reading.

If you are concerned that you are really slow:

  • Check that you are not mouthing the words – it will slow you down
  • Do not stare at individual words – let your eyes run along a line stopping at every third word. Practise and then lengthen the run until you are stopping only four times per line, then three times, etc.
  • The more you read, the faster you will become as you grow more familiar with specialist vocabulary, academic language and reading about theories and ideas. So keep practising…

If you still have concerns about your reading speed, book an  individual advice session  with a Study Adviser.

  • ibid : In the same work as the last footnote or reference (from ibidem meaning: in the same place)
  • op.cit: In the work already mentioned (from operato citato meaning in the work cited)
  • ff: and the following pages
  • cf: compare
  • passim: to be found throughout a particular book.

You may also find journal titles abbreviated. You will often find a list in your Course Handbook of the most often used in your discipline. Or ask the Academic Liaison Librarian for your subject.

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  • Next: Effective note-making >>
  • Last Updated: Feb 8, 2024 6:32 PM
  • URL: https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/reading
  • Reading to Engage and Evaluate
  • Effective Critical Reading

Audience and Purpose

Analysis Checklist

  • Reading for Evaluation

As an effective critical reader you must be able to identify the important elements of a text and their function.

To analyze means to break a text down into its parts to better understand it. When analyzing you notice both what the author is saying and how they are saying it. Looking deeply into a text beyond the explicit information can tell you the intended audience, the author's agenda or purpose, and the argument. Clues about these areas are often found in the language the author uses such as the word choice, phrasing, and tone. 

Look at this excerpt. Click each number button to learn more about evaluating this text:

How Is Asthma Treated? 

Take your medicine exactly as your doctor tells you and stay away from things that can trigger an attack to control your asthma.

Everyone with asthma does not take the same medicine. 

You can breathe in some medicines and take other medicines as a pill. Asthma medicines come in two types-quick-relief and long-term control. Quick-relief medicines control the symptoms of an asthma attack. If you need to use your quick-relief medicines more and more, visit your doctor to see if you need a different medicine. Long-term control medicines help you have fewer and milder attacks, but they don't help you while you are having an asthma attack. 

Asthma medicines can have side effects, but most side effects are mild and soon go away.  Ask your doctor about the side effects of your medicines. 

Remember -you can control your asthma. With your doctor's help, make your own asthma action plan. Decide who should have a copy of your plan and where he or she should keep it. Take your long-term control medicine even when you don't have symptoms. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC), 2018).

Use of Second Person

The author uses the second person point of view, the "you" pronoun to address the reader. The use of second person point of view is informal and not often seen as scholarly writing.

Scholarly Voice

The author uses contractions like don't and avoids medical terminology and difficult vocabulary.

Talking Directly to Readers

The author seems to be talking directly to readers who are not in the medical profession, giving them advice on how to treat asthma and prevent attacks.

From this analysis we can interpret that the intended audience is individuals with asthma.

The tone, while informal, it is also authoritative and direct. Note and gentle, emotional, or anecdotal information that is included. The author does not highlight statistics about the high rate of asthma or the implications of leaving it untreated. In order to persuade, the writing is presented in an objective manner that supports awareness. From this analysis, we understand that the author's purpose is to inform in a very practical way.

Why does analyzing for audience and purpose matter?

The audience and purpose can tell you whether a source might be appropriate to use in your own research and writing.

For example, because this excerpt was written to inform the general public about asthma, it does not have the level of detail and evidence necessary for scholarly research. 

It is also helpful to know from what point of view the author is writing so you can consider that when evaluating for potential bias. Another benefit of analyzing in this way is that you can apply what you learn to your own writing. For example, when reading an academic essay you may identify that word choice and tone are really effective in communicating with the academic community. You can then try a similar voice and tone in your own writing.

If you find it helpful to follow checklists, consider using this one to practice your analysis skills as you are reading. 

Who is the intended audience?

What is the author's purpose?

How do the audience and purpose influence your reading?

Argument and Evidence

What is the thesis?

What are the main points that support that thesis, and how do those main points connect?

What evidence is used?

Language and Tone

What is the tone the author uses?

How does the author's use of language and tone support the audience, purpose, and argument?

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  • Next Page: Reading for Evaluation
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By K ristin Milligan

In many classrooms around the country, students are handed assignment sheets that nicely detail what is expected of them as writers. Regardless of the genre, one (outdated) mainstay is the mandate for formal outlines. It’s good for writers to collect their thoughts before jumping into the physical process of writing, and most people would agree with this concept, but unfortunately, not everyone thinks or writes the same way. As a result, formal outlines required at the beginning of the writing process may hinder creativity and progress. Even more likely, students write the mandated outline after the piece has been revised and edited, as a means of meeting the assignment requirements. Requiring students to create an outline as the first step of the writing process  t eaches them that writing is a linear movement, when in reality, it’s actually recursive.

Reflect on Your Experience

Have you ever been required to write a formal outline as part of a larger assignment? How did it help or hurt your writing process?

There’s an age-old argument among those in the composition field. Should teachers and writers be focused on the product or the process of writing? Writing can be understood in a variety of ways, but one consistent factor is the idea of planning before actu ally writing the intended piece. For quite a while now, this idea has translated to the mandatory inclusion of outlines as a means of helping students organize and develop their thoughts before writ ing a draft. In general terms, the use of outlines as a pre-writing strategy is thought to afford writers the ability to more cohesively structure their written work.

While organization and form are important aspects to the writing process, just because someone has organized ideas in a prefabricated and hierarchical form does not mean the actual writing is going to reflect this linear pre-writing strategy. For instance, one study concerning the behavior of good writers found that only one of the writers studied used anything close to what one could call an outline, but there were 14 other good writers in the study, too. Does that mean that the one student who used an outline is the best writer? How can teachers qualify writers’ abilities and strengths, especially based on a linear docu ment that vaguely represents a recursive process? This disconnect highlights a major gap in the understanding of how good writers compose texts.

Essentially, requiring students to create a formal outline for their written work excludes other valuable organizational strategies, such as mind mapping, picture drawing, and manipulating phys ical representations of ideas, such as rearranging Post-It notes on a whiteboard. Instead of only choosing a familiar and mandated organizational form, students should instead be allowed to use strategies that work best with their own intelligences to foster their growth.

Another reason mandatory outlines should be given their proper burial is that outlines seem to only serve students in a particular manner: organization. Students’ final drafts are more organized when they use electronic outlining, but it doesn’t help them in strengthening a paper’s argument. In other words, outlines help students organize ideas, but don’t help students develop those ideas. Furthermore, a study on how students use prior knowl edge to develop new skills toward writing established that outlines alone don’t help with student understanding. Ultimately, outlines make students focus on writing as a product instead of a process, even though they are meant to do the latter.

Even if students weren’t required to create formal outlines, an organizational process would most likely be used in some manner, based on how people learn through observation of others’ writing processes. Research highlights how students naturally use outlines as they fit into particular assignments. Not only do students have the ability to apply the concept of outlining when needed, they also marry this strategy with others that benefit them in the writ ing process. Even so, research shows that the use of outlines has no correlation with the success of student papers. So, it can be assumed that students have the capability of using an outline (in whatever form it may take) as it serves their writing purposes, but students should not be forced to use a pre-writing strategy that is inorganic to their writing process, such as a formal outline with Roman numerals, a and b subdivisions, and the like. When students only need to plug in information into an already estab lished structure, they lose multiple opportunities to engage in crit ical thinking and development of their ideas.

What planning strategies do you think might help you organize your thinking and better develop your argument before you begin drafting?

In most cases, required outlines become a contrived formal ity, not a tool to help student writers succeed. Personal experience reminds us that students learn how to create outlines by being told what to do. (I can still hear my junior-year high school English teacher repeating to us that if our outlines “have an A they must have a B. If they have a 1 they must have a 2,” as if this alone constituted pre-writing.) A more fruitful approach is to encourage students in their writing by allowing them to explore multiple writ ing strategies at every stage of the process. In doing so, there’s the possibility that students’ beliefs about their writing efficacy will increase because they will be focusing on what helps them develop their skills in writing and not their skills in following directions.

But not all uses of outlines are pernicious. One way that outlines can serve a vital function is to use them in the reverse. A small amount of literature has been shared about how writing a draft, then an outline of that draft, gives the writer the chance to see where revisions are needed. It’s important to note that some students just don’t know what they’re going to write about until they’ve started writing. Using outlines to organize thoughts that don’t exist yet has the capability of stifling students’ thinking processes, but when students decide to adapt outlines to benefit their personal writing method, it reinforces the fact that writing is a recursive and non-linear process. Teachers should be teach ing outlines as a way to highlight the progress that students have made, instead of as a way to dictate where students are supposed to end up before they’ve even started.

Reverse outlines not only help students pinpoint whether Paragraph 2 should become Paragraph 4, but they also emphasize many other aspects of writing as well. As Rachel Cayley points out, reverse outlining helps students pinpoint general structural problems and begin the process of detailed revisions. Additionally, depending on what is included in the reverse outline, students may end up noticing errors in topic sentences, flow of ideas, transitions, or the development of their argument. Reverse outlining helps to delineate the need to circle back, review, and revise, while encour aging students to realize that hierarchical structure and organiza tion are important factors in creating a well-developed text.

Writing is a messy practice, and it’s important to be gentle with one another and ourselves, especially when we decide which tools we want to use to make sense of our mess. It’s vital to realize and remember that outlines are a tool at our disposal when we write; they aren’t the only mode of organization, nor are they necessarily the best mode for our particular writing process.

Reflect on Your Reading

  • Have you ever found outlines to be helpful? What are some ways that outlining can help students?
  • What do you think is more important or beneficial for students to focus on: process or product? Why?

Further Reading

To learn more about writing processes, see Linda Flower and John R. Hayes’s classic article, “The Cognitive Process Theory of Writing,” along with Anne Becker’s “A Review of Writing Model Research Based on Cognitive Processes,” Charles K. Stallard’s “An Analysis of the Writing Behavior of Good Student Writers,” and Veerle M. Baaijen, David Galbraith, and Kees de Glopper’s “Effects of Writing Beliefs and Planning on Writing Performance.”

For further reading about outlines and reverse outlines, along with practical tips and examples, see “Types of Outlines and Samples” on the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab), Aaron Hamburger’s “Outlining in Reverse,” Kurtis Clements’s podcast “Revision Strategy—Post-Draft Outlining,” and the Kansas State University Writing Center’s handout “Reverse Outlining,” all available online. See also Milou J.R. de Smet, et. al.’s “Electronic Outlining as a Writing Strategy: Effects on Students’ Writing Products, Mental Effort and Writing Process,” and Barbara E. Walvoord, et. al.’s, “Functions of Outlining Among College Students in Four Disciplines.”

outlines, post draft outlining, reverse outlining, writing as a process, writing process

Kristin Milligan is currently the associate director of the Learning Center at East Central College. In her more than six years of experience as a writing center tutor, Kristin has seen all kinds of outlines, messy and neat, informal and formal, and she has observed the effects of writing process choices on student texts. Kristin holds a Master’s degree from Texas State University in San Marcos, TX, and a teaching degree from Webster University in St. Louis, MO. She embraces multiple modes of brainstorming and organization as a way to reach diverse writers.

To the extent possible under law, Lisa Dunick has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Readings for Writing , except where otherwise noted.

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Young Readers Foundation

The Importance Of Reading

Reading is an exercise for the mind. It helps kids calm down and relax, opening doors of new knowledge to enlighten their minds. Kids who read grow up to have better cognitive skills. Reading is good for everyone, not only children or young adults. On the internet you will find many lists with up to 30 reasons why reading is important. Here I limit myself to 15 thoroughly substantiated reasons.

Reading improves vocabulary

Even as adults, when we read, we come across many new words we never really heard of. And we learn from this. As you read, you come across new words, phrases and writing styles. This is even more so for young people. Children sometimes stumble over their words, do not know how to pronounce them or what they mean. By reading, young people encounter new words more frequently and sometimes repetitively and therefore can see them better in their context. If you then pay attention to the pronunciation as a parent, these children will be better prepared for school.

Better comprehension

Kids who are encouraged to read at an early age have better comprehension of things around them. They develop smart thinking abilities and are more receptive to creativity and ideas that other kids their age lack. As a result, they grow up to be a good deal more intelligent and aware of their surroundings than kids who don’t read. The more you read, the more imaginative you become. Whenever you read a fiction book, it takes you another world. In the new world, your imagination works at its best as you try to see things in your own mind.

Develops critical thinking skills

One of the primary benefits of reading books is its ability to develop critical thinking skills. For example, reading a mystery novel sharpens your mind. What elements are there in a story to make this or that conclusion. Or if a book is non-fiction you will sometimes ask yourself if the author is right. Critical thinking skills are crucial when it comes to making important day to day decisions. Reading requires an individual to think and process information in a way that watching television can’t. The more you read, the deeper your understanding becomes about what you’re reading and its application.

Improves memory

Every time you read a book, you have to remember the setting of the book, the characters, their backgrounds, their history, their personalities, the sub-plots and so much more. As your brain learns to remember all this, your memory becomes better. What’s more, with every new memory you create, you create new pathways and this strengthens the existing ones.

Improves results at school

Kids who indulge in reading book and learning new things do better at school. They are more creative, open to new ideas, and develop empathy for others. For instance, kids who read about heroes idolize them, kids who love reading anatomy books dream of becoming a doctor, etc. They learn to empathize with characters in the books and want to be like them. Not only that, they learn valuable life lessons such as helping others and being kind. Moral codes such as goods things will be appreciated and evils punished take root in their minds too, as a result of which they learn to stay away from trouble.

Improves analytical skills

Figuring out how the story was going to end before finishing the book means you utilized your analytical skills. Reading allows your thinking skills to become more developed in the sense that you consider all aspects.

Builds confidence

In a world where competition in every walk of life prevails, we need to build a child’s personality as to have considerable confidence in themselves. Kids who lack confidence in their early stages often grow up to be shy, and at times suicidal, since they develop a victim mentality owing to the lack of confidence in their own self. They find it hard to face even the smallest of challenges life throws at them, instead simply giving up. Reading books sharpens many skills and all together they’ll build confidence.

Helps you socialize

We can always share whatever we have read with our family, friends and colleagues. All this increases our ability to socialize. Humans are social beings and in the world of smartphones, we are losing our ability to socialize. However, reading had led to the formation of book clubs and other forums where we get a chance to share and interact with others.

Broadens horizons

By reading books, you get a glimpse of other cultures and places. Books expand your horizons, letting you see other countries, other people and so many other things you have never seen or imagined. It’s the perfect way to visit a strange country in your mind. When we open a book while sitting in the comfort of our rooms, like time travelling, we transport our imaginations to a world purely based on the imaginations of the author. We learn about everything they wants u to know, see the world through their eyes and their perspective, learn about new people, discover their traditions, cultures and all that makes them unique and unforgettable.

Improves writing skills

Reading a well-written book affects your ability to become a better writer. Just like artists influence others, so do writers. Many successful authors gained their expertise by reading the works of others. Kids who learn to read also tend to develop better writing skills. The reason: they have been introduced to a world where words are their main weapon and they are free to shoot out. Literally! Parents must try to develop an interest for writing. Kids with good writing skills don’t fall victim to cramming and can express themselves more candidly through their words.

Improves focus and concentration

In our internet-crazed world, attention is drawn in a million different directions at once as we multi-task through every day. In a single 5-minute span, the average person will divide their time between working on a task, checking email, chatting with a couple of people (via gchat, skype, etc.), keeping an eye on twitter, monitoring their smartphone, and interacting with co-workers. This type of ADD-like behavior causes stress levels to rise, and lowers our productivity. When you read a book, all of your attention is focused on the story—the rest of the world just falls away, and you can immerse yourself in every fine detail you’re absorbing. Try reading for 15-20 minutes before work (i.e. on your morning commute, if you take public transit), and you’ll be surprised at how much more focused you are once you get to the office or school.

Makes you more empathetic

According to studies, losing yourself in books, especially fiction, might increase your empathy. In a study conducted in the Netherlands, researchers showed that people who were “emotionally transported” by a work of fiction experienced a boost in empathy. By reading a book, you become part of the story and feel the pain and other emotions of the characters. This in turn allows your mind to become more aware of how different things affect other people. Eventually, this improves your ability to emphasize with other people.

It develops emotions

When you read a book, you are on the receiving end of knowledge. The sender, the writer is delivering a message, imparting something of value, a fact, an opinion, a view or at the very least an emotion. They are inviting you into their own psyche and hoping that you will care enough to listen and respond to it. So it won’t be wrong to say that reading actually flexes emotions. It builds a connection between the reader and the writer you have never met or known before. Even if you disagree with what they are delivering, you get to know them, and you connect to them on an emotional level.

Readers are leaders

Although not definitively proved, but almost all great leaders were readers. One reason they are respected and known for their wisdom is because they develop a healthy reading habit. For centuries, reading has been the source of inspiration, growth and new ideas. It is a valuable investment in one’s own personality with uncountable and long-lasting benefits. If you want your child to become one, you need to encourage him to read. It will keep his mind healthy and productive. Only then they will be able to impact the world in a better way.

Learn at your own pace

Another benefit of reading a book is that you learn at your own pace. Since you have the book all the time, you can always go back to a section you feel you don’t understand. You can re-read a chapter as many times as you wish, without worry that you will miss out a section. If it’s a self-help book, you can tackle one issue at a time. Once you handle one problem, then you can move to the next issue whenever you feel you’re ready. Everything is done at your own pace and most importantly, your mind is free to interpret things the way you feel.

Reading books also reduces stress, helps you sleep better, improves health, develops your imagination and above all: it is just fun to do. Reading has a tremendous effect in fueling all aspects of our personality and enhancing our linguistic prowess. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the entirety of human life depends on it. Whatever we grow up to become in our lives, no matter where we stand, reading has somehow shaped it.

source listings: 23 Reasons Why You Need To Encourage Kids To Read by Serious Reading https://seriousreading.com/blog/1001-23-reasons-why-you-need-to-encourage-kids-to-read.html 30 Reasons to Read Books by Serious Reading https://seriousreading.com/blog/283-30-reasons-to-read-books.html 12 Reasons Why You Should Read More Books by Georgette Rivera https://www.theodysseyonline.com/12-reasons-should-read 10 Benefits of Reading: Why You Should Read Every Day by Lana Winter-Hébert https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-benefits-reading-why-you-should-read-everyday.html

reading is useful essay

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Efficient and Effective Reading

Read with purpose.

  • Read for general knowledge
  • Read for detailed understanding
  • Read critically

Good research notes are a result of active and critical reading. Active readers think about what they read and how they can use their reading in their essays.  Critical readers consider implications, biases, and assumptions and critically question the reading.

Determine a clear purpose before you read and maintain that purpose while you read to avoid collecting too many unnecessary notes. The purpose of your reading is guided by your thesis, research questions, and essay outline, so it is helpful to review these prior to reading a source.

Start by skimming each source. Look at the title, the abstract, the introduction, and conclusion; this helps you to understand the main argument (or thesis) in each source.

Plan your reading approach: you can read key texts first, read general before specific works, read more recent texts before older ones, or read texts grouped by a particular argument.

Read for General Knowledge

Before you begin to read, you should determine the reason you are reading the source. Skimming will help you to get the gist of a reading without noting all its supporting details.

Follow these four steps to read for general knowledge:

  • Skim the introductory paragraph(s) to establish the author’s thesis or main argument.
  • Read the first sentence or two of each paragraph to give you the main idea of the paragraph. Together, these should show the development of the thesis.
  • Read the concluding sentence of each paragraph.
  • Take notes (3 to 4 sentences) about the essence of the article and what ideas are most relevant to your essay.

Read for Detailed Understanding

Detailed reading is important when the source contains a central argument related to your topic or the author is an outstanding scholar in the field. Detailed reading may occupy a good deal of your research time. Learn more about reading argumentative texts and empirical articles.

Read carefully:

  • Check for patterns of argument and organizational development. Pay particular attention to transitional words and phrases, for they can supply a context for the sentence or paragraph to come.
  • A paragraph should contain one main idea and the topic sentence will help you to determine the main idea of the paragraph. The topic sentence is often the first sentence of the paragraph.
  • Break down the sentences if the sentences are extremely complex. Read aloud through difficult passages, and concentrate on key phrases.
  • Use a dictionary or a discipline-specific glossary for terms. Keep a list of important new terms and their meanings.

Read Critically

To read critically, you must carefully consider the argument, context, author, and author's perspective, while at the same time you must be aware of your own perspective and bias.

  • Try to judge arguments on their merits: be aware of how your own bias may affect your judgment.
  • Where a text comes from and who it is written for can affect meaning. Think how the historical and cultural context influences the reading.
  • What does the author hope to achieve (to convince the reader, arouse sympathy, inspire indignation)? You may see an author emphasize certain points but ignore others in an effort to achieve his or her purpose.
  • Do not accept authorities unquestioningly. Authorities do not always agree; the word of one is not indisputable.
  • Watch for generalizations. Does the author draw conclusions on the basis of similarities between things that are not similar?
  • Does the author think in extremes, ignoring possibilities in between? Anything neatly divided into polar opposites should be suspect.
  • Watch for faulty reasoning. Does the author avoid a question, talking around it by tackling other issues? Does the author avoid answering the question?

reading is useful essay

Importance And Benefits Of Reading Skills In Communication

“There is no friend as loyal as a book”, said American author Ernest Hemingway. Books fire up your imagination, provide…

133. Stages And Strategies For Effective Reading

“There is no friend as loyal as a book”, said American author Ernest Hemingway. Books fire up your imagination, provide solace in times of grief, and open up your world.

The importance of a reading habit is intrinsically linked to professional success, as it opens up the mind to new experiences and provides new avenues of knowledge.

What Are Reading Skills?

The importance of reading, advantages of reading.

Reading can make you a better writer and speaker. Reading skills can take you a step ahead and help you achieve your objectives by customizing the way you read. If you choose the appropriate reading skill, it will enhance the reading process and help you achieve your goal.

If you wish to read for pleasure, you can use the extensive reading skill. There is no expectation from the reader here and you can understand the meaning of words through context. For example, after reading the sentence, “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”, you would be able to make out that the meaning of tread has something to do with walking.

Among the various reading skills, intensive reading is used most often. Here, you pay complete attention to every word and understand it fully. This method would take you much longer to read, but the comprehension of the text would be much higher.

Another reading skill, critical reading, helps analyze and question the assumptions in the text. It enables you to arrive at your own conclusions.

When you want to go over information quickly, you use skimming. For example, going through a book before purchasing it. Sometimes when you read, you only look for a specific portion. This skill is called scanning.

Choosing the appropriate way to read can help you get maximum benefit. For example, you should not skim through something that you need to prepare a report on. Similarly, you may not want to apply the extensive reading skill for a topic that you don’t find interesting.

Reading enhances our life in several ways:

Exercising your mind

One of the advantages of reading is that it engages various parts of your brain. When you read, you exercise your comprehension abilities and your analytical abilities. It fires up your imagination and stimulates the memory centers of your mind. It helps recall information as well as stabilize your emotions.

The importance of a reading habit is that it strengthens mental muscles. Reading is one of the best mental workouts there is. It’s been found that regular mental stimulation can slow down and possibly even prevent diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. Reading keeps the mind agile and young.

The role of reading skills in communication

Swedish-American writer Frans Johansson, in his book The Medici Effect , explains how creativity is intersectional. Ideas born in one medium and industry can be used as inspiration for others.

Reading and writing work in similar ways. Reading improves your writing style and flow. Writers learn to perfect their craft by taking inspiration from other writers. It’s impossible to be a good writer if you don’t read. Acclaimed author Stephen King is said to carry a book with him wherever he goes. He even reads while eating.

Another vital role of reading skills in communication is perfecting your oratory skills . Reading teaches you new words and perspectives. It helps strengthen language and sharpens sentence structure. It gives you a better command over the language. All of these are critical to being a good speaker.

Finding yourself

Books work as portals to newer worlds. They have the potential to broaden your perspective, shape your attitude towards others and life, and open you up to new ways of thinking about everyday life.

One of the several advantages of reading is that it helps shape your identity. When you read, you decide who you want to become. You borrow bits from fictional characters you hold dear. For example, reading Sherlock Holmes can inspire you to become a detective or simply become more observant and analytical.

Becoming a well-read individual

Well-read individuals are held in awe. The words “well-read” are often used to denote a learned individual, full of wisdom.

Before the internet, books were the only sources of information and knowledge. Books contain the collective wisdom of our times. The more you read, the more you will learn about the world and the people in it. One of the great benefits of reading is that it helps you evolve your understanding of the world.

Keeping calm and entertained

Books can be a perfect escape from reality. They can cheer you up when you’re down, motivate you when you’re sad, and even keep you company when everybody else is busy.

One of the benefits of reading is that it relaxes your mind and body. You recharge your energy levels much faster when you read. Reading is the best way to end the day on a calm note. It may even help you fall asleep much faster.

The points above demonstrate the importance of maintaining a reading habit. Here are a few more benefits of reading regularly:

Improves your thinking skills and analytical abilities

There are times when you read a book and realize there are loopholes in the plot. You figure out who the murderer is before the book tells you. Somehow, your mind works faster when you read.

Reading sends your analytical and critical thinking abilities into hyperdrive. Each book becomes a puzzle your mind races to solve. With each book, it keeps improving its score.

These same abilities also apply to the real world. A reader’s mind is trained to notice tiny details. It puts the pieces together and can find connections. It is more adept at identifying patterns and solving puzzles. It learns how to synthesize knowledge better. In Harappa Education’s course on Reading Deeply , this aspect is covered in the module on Post Reading.

Helps you block out the noise

Short attention spans are the order of the day as lives become a constant stream of interruptions and activity.

You are expected to manage your WhatsApp messages and check your email and interact with your colleagues, all at the same time. Juggling such tasks reduces focus and lowers productivity.

But when you read a book, all your attention is focused. The importance of reading in our digital age cannot be overstated. It is perhaps the only way left to improve focus and attention.

Helps master a language

Reading is one of the best ways to learn a new language or gain mastery over a known one. Also, when you learn through stories, you learn much faster.

Learning about words through context is one of the most organic ways to understand their meaning and improve your vocabulary. This also helps gain knowledge about colloquial terms.

Connecting with others

Books can be great conversation starters and can help bond with new people.

Readers can have multiple stories to tell or topics to discuss, and can easily become the center of attention due to their knowledge. Their ability to objectively critique issues also makes them popular.

Keeps you grounded 

Reading is a constant exercise in  humility . The more you read, the more you realize how much you haven’t. That reminds you of how much further you still need to go. Each book reminds you of how limited your knowledge is.

Readers are friendlier and more accepting of others. They are always helpful as they know they too are still a work in progress.

Its benefits make reading a non-negotiable habit. A book can be many different things. It can be a guide when you are lost. It can be a companion when you feel alone.

While these benefits are remarkable, reading deeply requires expert guidance. You can learn all about in Harappa Education’s Reading Deeply course, which helps you improve your reading quotient. Sign up now to start your reading journey.

Explore our Harappa Diaries section to know more about topics related to the Communicate habit such as speaking skills , what is communication , and the importance of writing skills .

Reskilling Programs

L&D leaders need to look for reskilling programs that meet organizational goals and employee aspirations. The first step to doing this is to understand the skills gaps and identify what’s necessary. An effective reskilling program will be one that is scalable and measurable. Companies need to understand their immediate goals and prepare for future requirements when considering which employees to reskill.

Are you still uncertain about the kind of reskilling program you should opt for?  Speak to our expert   to understand what will work best for your organization and employees.

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Importance of reading essay

Importance of reading essay 19 Models

Last updated Friday , 15-03-2024 on 11:32 am

Importance of reading essay we present to you with several different models that contain a long, short, and easy speech that suits all educational stages, with some notes and school goals from this article, and how to practically integrate the goals into the article until it becomes ideal for the student and the teacher finds in it the dimensions and goals that is needed in the article.

Importance of reading essay

The school plays a major role in teaching our children to read and write from an early age. Children are often left without guidance on the goals and reasons for their learning to read and write.

Therefore, it is great to provide homework for them to help them discover the goals behind reading, what is its importance, and what may benefit them in their future.

All of these goals we will present to you in this article are based on the following goals, which we will put for you in the form of points.

Objectives of the article

1- Helping to connect the words.

2- Helping in analysis and thinking.

3- Increase awareness.

4- Connecting and deepening the events.

5- The meaning and the lesson behind each story.

6- Increasing sebum activity.

7- Acquiring new words and terms.

8- Gain knowledge and confidence in speaking on many topics.

Reading is the beacon that lights our path of progress and knowledge, and that helps us develop and improve ourselves. Reading is the most important achievement discovered by man, which helped mankind to progress.

We can go back to the past and see the impact of the beginning of learning to read, and see the great change resulting from education in the further expansion of human horizons and help him in analysis, thinking and linking events. It also played a major role in increasing mental activity and increasing self-confidence due to the scientific outcome that a person collects from reading.

We can clearly see the impact of reading through the young children around us. And how it affects their lives and behaviors from the beginning of their learning to read until they graduate and integrate them into society until they work with what they learned from it.

As it teaches them how to complete research, production and invention from where people before them stopped, through their study of previous research.

It also teaches them a lot about their history, how to establish multiple civilizations around them, and the strength and weakness point that led to prosperity or the loss of these civilizations.

When we see the impact of reading and realize its importance, we find that peoples are progressing and building where previous generations left off faster and with extensive experience.

We also see new generations coming out to life with a broader awareness of development and technology, and they have confidence and new experiences that are commensurate with the life we ​​live in today.

Dear student, a basic form was submitted for the topic on importance of reading essay, In addition to many other models such as, importance of reading short essay, speech on importance of reading, importance of reading short essay 100 words, short speech on importance of reading, short speech about importance of reading, short paragraph on importance of reading, importance of reading short paragraph, importance of reading short speech, essay on importance of reading books 150 words.

If you prefer to add any other topic, you can contact us through the comments of this article and we will study your request and add it as soon as possible.

importance of reading essay

Reading and enriching culture

Reading is very important in our lives, as it makes us more familiar with the culture of other peoples.Thus, we can add to our culture what is useful and get rid of what is harmful.

Reading also makes us get to know the ideas of others and thus we can accept their customs and traditions without being surprised.

Reading expands our perceptions and makes us more rational, and thus we can make right decisions and easily solve the problems we face in our lives.

Therefore, the state is interested in establishing libraries and providing them with modern means, and it is keen that these libraries include books, magazines and research in all fields, so that it will be easy for us to read our favorite books without any fatigue, and at no cost as well, as most libraries provide their services for free.

importance of reading short essay

Reading and the development of various sciences

Reading is of great importance, as it conveys to us the experiences of others, thus shortening years of searching for facts and concepts.

All sciences are cumulative, and what we come up with today in terms of modern inventions is the result of research and experiments carried out by other scientists, whether they are ancient scientists or still living.

Every scientist or inventor benefits from the experiences and expertise of the scientists who preceded him, adding to those sciences or correcting them.

Thus, we find that sciences are cumulative, and there is no conflict between them, but there is a constant development of ideas until we reach the best inventions.

Hence the important role of reading. Without reading, we will not know the theories, concepts and facts reached by previous scholars, and thus we will waste time and effort.

Speech on importance of reading

Electronic reading

Reading has become available to everyone without effort or cost. In the age of technology, every person has a mobile phone and the Internet, and now they have become the most important means of reading.

E-reading has become the most popular in the world.

E-reading is characterized by saving effort and time, as I can read any book using the mobile and the Internet while I am at home without going to the library and sitting on an uncomfortable seat for a long time, adhering to the library’s instructions, remaining silent and calm, and other instructions.

As for reading through the mobile phone, I can read easily anytime and anywhere. Also, E-reading is inexpensive, so I do not need to travel or buy books.

Importance of reading short essay 100 words

Reading gives us the experiences of the writer

There is no doubt that reading is of great importance in our lives, as it adds to us information and experiences that we cannot know without reading.

When the writer writes a book or a story, there are several ideas that he tries to convey to the reader. These ideas are the result of his experiences and experiences, which he acquired during his years of life, while we can acquire them as soon as we read the book.

Hence, it becomes clear to us the importance of thinking about what we read, because it expresses the writer’s thoughts and beliefs, and these ideas may not be appropriate for our customs and traditions.

Therefore, we must know what we are reading and for whom we are reading so that we are not affected by destructive ideas.

Reading is one of the best hobbies that we must practice daily. We must devote time daily to reading, as this benefits us in our studies and benefits us in our lives in general.

Short speech on importance of reading

Reading and belonging to the country

Reading has many benefits, including that it makes us proud of our country. Reading history books introduces us to the sacrifices made by our ancestors in order to live a decent life. Through history books we will read about the wars they fought against the colonialists and how they sacrificed their lives for freedom.

Reading the history of our homeland makes us cherish it and we are proud that we belong to it and appreciate the effort made by our grandparents and fathers.

The progress and prosperity we enjoy in our lives have been credited to them. Therefore, reading history is important and contains many lessons that we can benefit from in solving the problems of the present.

The government has taken care of providing all the information about the history of the homeland, in addition to holding national celebrations that are held on the occasion of important events that had a major role in changing our lives for the better.

Short speech about importance of reading

Reading is the most important way to learn

Reading is the most important way to learn, so whoever wants to learn anything, even if it is a craft, he likes to read about it until he understands its secrets.

There are other ways to learn, such as experiment, observation, conclusion, and so on, but reading provides us with more information and we can use it to learn important information about any field.

Modern technology has provided us with an easy way through which we can read any book or scientific research, and that is through a mobile phone or computer.

The Internet provides us with millions of books and scientific research in various fields. We can read what we want easily at any time and any place without any trouble or financial cost. There are even explanatory videos, and book summaries, so that we can get to know the most important ideas without reading them.

Short paragraph on importance of reading

what do we read

Undoubtedly, there are many areas that we can read about, but there is a priority for what we read. Sometimes it is better to read books related to our studies because this will make us more aware and understanding of what we are studying, and thus we can excel and succeed in our studies.

But sometimes we want to read something entertaining, so we read stories, poetry, art magazines, and so on. We can choose what suits us from books, magazines and research according to the goal we want to achieve, and also according to our psychological state and mood.

In many cases, we are tired and cannot concentrate, so we prefer to read a story, for example, or poems, or other things.

Importance of reading short paragraph

Reading gives us fluent speaking skills

Reading is of great importance in our lives, as it has many benefits, and one of these benefits is the acquisition of many linguistic vocabulary. You will find that a person who reads a lot can speak tactfully and express his thoughts in an easy and convincing manner as well. This is because reading makes us get to know the style of a large number of writers in the way they express their ideas. There are those who use verbiage and explain their idea in several ways and use simple words. While there is another writer who prefers to be short and expresses his idea in short sentences, sometimes vague and carrying more than one meaning, leaving the reader an opportunity to think. Therefore, reading makes us more able to express our thoughts in an interesting style and with simple and accurate words at the same time.

importance of reading short speech

Reading gives us new skills

One of the most important benefits of reading is that it gives us new skills. Last summer, I wanted to learn how to grow ornamental plants, in order to grow them in my garden.

I did not have any previous information about their types or how to cultivate them. The first thing I thought of was reading about growing ornamental plants, what are their types, and what is the right kind to grow in the home garden.

Indeed, I read several books and research papers in that specialty, and I learned a lot of useful information that helped me to be skilled in the cultivation of ornamental plants.

I planted it in my home garden and all my friends liked it so much that they asked me to help them grow it in their gardens.

So I thought this would be my profession, thanks to the books I’ve read.

Short note on importance of reading

Reading is very important in our lives, including the following:

Reading is the most important way to learn, as we cannot learn without reading.

Therefore, the Ministry of Education is interested in teaching reading and writing at the primary level, and the interest is great because reading is the first step on the path to knowledge.

Reading gives us the skills to speak tactfully because we learn about many linguistic methods, and thus we have a linguistic wealth that enables us to speak tactfully.

Reading gives us new skills, and we always find that a good reader can be a good writer.

-Reading also increases belonging to the homeland, as we read about the history of our homeland and know the sacrifices made by our ancestors in order to preserve the integrity of our homelands and to live in safety.

Reading gives us the experiences of the writer, so we can gain experience from reading a book, and this experience the writer acquired in several years.

Value of reading short essay

Reading is of great importance in our lives. Through reading, we acquire different knowledge, and learn about the culture of other peoples, so we can develop our ideas and benefit from the experiences of others.

All human sciences are cumulative sciences, so we start from where others ended, and thus the efforts of previous scholars are not wasted, just as we do not waste time on what we can know by reading only.

Therefore, the government pays great attention to teaching reading and writing for all segments of society. We find that the most important goals of the primary education stage are learning to read and write, because they are the basis for learning throughout life.

Video reaction paper example

In order to present a video explaining the reaction sheet, you must take into account that the video is of short duration, so that the viewer can see it without getting bored.

The presentation should be interesting and use a clear style of explanation. You can also use some scenes from the artwork that you are talking about.

It is preferable to present the scene and then comment on it, whether positively or negatively. This method is more convincing for the viewer and makes him think seriously about what you say, and after presenting the points of agreement and points of disagreement between you and the writer, you can summarize your opinion of the work as a whole.

Short paragraph on importance of reading books

Reading and Alzheimer’s

Reading does not depend on a certain age, reading should be an essential thing in our daily regime. Scientific research conducted on groups of the elderly has shown that older people who keep reading are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease, and their ability to focus is greater than older people who do not read.This shows the importance of reading for all age groups.Reading develops and activates memory, in addition to protecting us from mental illnesses and diseases related to memory and mental abilities. Therefore, every person should be keen on reading and perpetuating it, as reading is not linked to age, but rather is beneficial for young and old.

A short speech on importance of reading

Reading is food for the mind

The mind needs nourishment just as the body needs nourishment, and reading is the nourishment of the mind. When we read a book, we increase our knowledge, develop our ideas, and acquire new skills. Reading is also fun, especially reading stories, as it makes us integrate into events and live in another world.

Reading also makes our minds more open, which makes us believe in strange and difficult ideas. Like when we read about modern inventions, we find that it was a strange idea, and the inventor was able to imagine, invent and experiment until he reached a real invention, which was produced by factories and people bought and used with ease.Reading makes us more creative and makes us look forward to a better future.

Essay on importance of reading books 150 words

Reading encourages creativity

There is no doubt that reading makes our thoughts organized and increases our ability to understand, analyze and draw conclusions, and thus reading is considered an important reason for innovation and creativity.

As reading provides us with sufficient information in all fields, in addition to that, reading conveys to us the experiences and conclusions of others, so that we can know the positive things in their experience and benefit from them and not repeat the mistakes they made.

Just as the human sciences are cumulative sciences, the scientist or inventor must start from where the previous scientists ended, and thus science advances and inventions abound, and we offer humanity useful inventions that make their lives much better than the lives of our ancestors.

The goal of reading is to benefit from what we read, and therefore we must know what we read and whether it is useful for us or not, so that we do not waste our time reading trivial things that do not benefit us, but rather harm us, because they waste our time.

Because of the importance of reading, countries are interested in providing libraries, whether in schools or universities, and there are public libraries that all readers can benefit from their services.

Paragraph on importance of reading in 100 words

Reading is fun and enjoyable

Reading is a form of entertainment. Reading stories or poems makes us feel fun, and we resort to reading them when we feel nervous and psychological pressure as a result of too much work or many life problems, so we resort to reading romantic stories or thin poetic poems to get rid of stress and depression. It is said that the book is the best friend because it will not deceive us or deceive us. Reading has become easily available through the mobile phone. We no longer carry books on our travels, but we can read any book we want using the mobile and the Internet. Which gave us millions of books, research, magazines and stories with ease. In moments, we can search in Google for the name of the book, download it to our device, and read it at the appropriate time for us.

Paragraph on importance of reading books 150 words

Paper and e-reading

There is no doubt that electronic reading has become more prevalent than paper reading because it is much easier and available in all places and times. But there are some people who prefer protective reading, as they are accustomed to reading books, magazines and newspapers, and they do not feel happy except by reading paper.

This is because there is a strong bond formed between them and books, and often these people do not use technology much and are often elderly. On the contrary, we find that children and young people do not accept paper reading, but prefer electronic reading through mobile phones, tablets, or computers. Education officials were alert to this, as they saw the students’ reluctance to read paper school books, so they made school books electronic as well, in order to attract students to read school books, so that students could read them easily, and students were encouraged to read by making available to them in regular and electronic libraries.

Importance of reading essay 200 words

Reading is of great importance in our lives, as it is the food of our minds. Reading makes us more experienced and thus we can act correctly and make correct decisions in times of crisis, because reading gives us many ideas and experiences gained from the experiences of others.

Also, reading refines our behavior because we learn about the customs and traditions of many peoples and take advantage of the good things they have and stay away from bad habits. Also, reading allows us to read religious books and know their rulings, thus making our behavior.

Reading has a great advantage in spreading health awareness in society, and this was clearly evident during the spread of the Corona epidemic (Covid-19), where all people were constantly reading all the statements and publications issued by the World Health Organization.

Reading also encourages creativity and innovation due to the fact that we learn a lot of information and scientific facts that make our ideas more developed and thus we can be more innovative and creative.

Among the benefits of reading is also that it gives us a lot of vocabulary, so we can express our thoughts accurately and use a polite style in talking to others.

Among the benefits of reading is also that it makes us more receptive to others, thus reducing conflicts and spreading peace between different societies in customs and traditions.

Given the importance of reading, governments have taken care of providing libraries in schools and universities, in addition to public libraries.

Paragraph on importance of reading books

Reading books is very useful, and when you start reading a book, you find that there is something that motivates you to continue reading it to the end, especially if it is written in an interesting and attractive style.

We can read books in various fields in order to develop our culture. We can also choose the field we want to read about, depending on our study or our personal preferences.

For example, I like to read scientific books because they give me many good ideas that I can use in innovation and invention.

While my brother prefers reading historical books that show international relations in the past, the causes of wars and other important topics. As for my sister, she loves to read about fashion and art. Thus, each of us chooses from the books what suits his interests and hobbies.

Importance of books in our life essay

There is no doubt that books are of great importance in our lives, and that is why every family is keen to teach its children to read and write, and encourages them to read books.

Because every book we read adds new information to our information and earns us new vocabulary, in addition to providing us with many ideas and thus nations advance.

Reading any book will add new knowledge to us, but we must choose the books we read carefully in order to benefit from them.

Reading should be a way of life, that is, we keep reading and do not do it only in the summer vacation, because reading makes us more knowledgeable and more educated, and therefore this is reflected in our behavior with others.

Reading also has a positive impact on our understanding of events that occur in the world.

To read more related articles, you can click on the following links below the article.

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Reading Essay Titles

IELTS essay questions for books and reading topic.

Some people think books are losing importance as a source of information and entertainment. To what extent do you agree? (Reported 2017, GT)
Children who start reading earlier in life, perform better later on in their school studies. How important are early reading skills in a child’s academic performance? What other preschool factors influence a child’s later academic achievements?
Some people think that children who spend a lot of time reading children’s story books are wasting their time which could be better used doing other more useful activities. To what extent do you agree?
Some people think that e-books are the death of paper books while others think that paper books will never disappear. Discuss both sides and give your opinion.
Libraries should focus on improving their technological resources rather than in building a larger collection of paper books. To what extent do you agree?
Public libraries will soon now longer be housed in a building as all facilities and books will be available online for all to access. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of public libraries only existing online.

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Make phonics the base of early reading instruction

The push to improve reading instruction will benefit our children...

The push to improve reading instruction will benefit our children and our country. Credit: Getty Images/Klaus Vedfelt

When people read for fun, they look for the good stuff — a bestseller or a friend’s favorite. Lately, I’ve read a lot of texts my friends send my way — specifically, their kids’ school literacy newsletters. These pieces often start similarly: “This year in Room 201, we will focus on improving as readers!” Unfortunately, those inspiring openings often devolve into frightening fiction, outlining approaches to reading instruction that have proved ineffective — the three-cueing method, whole language strategies, kinesthetic instruction, i.e., the “bad stuff.”

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing to improve literacy instruction, including a $10 million investment in literacy. I’m grateful, for we will need major resources to revamp reading instruction. State lawmakers also must pass pending legislation requiring that all institutions of higher education in the state undergo an audit on literacy instruction to inform how we improve.

This will be a huge push, but one that will benefit our children and our country. We don’t only need to implement new and improved curriculum for teachers in training, we also need to retrain current teachers so every educator has the proper tools to teach kids to read. As New York’s budget negotiations continue, we need to ensure this priority doesn’t get cut.

As the leader of an institution of higher education, a once-and-future English teacher, and mother of two learning-to-read kids, I see how we teach kids to read in our country, and it’s too often ineffective. There are plenty of reasons why school districts, educators, and parents stand by methods of reading instruction that don’t work.

School districts are beset by publishers who spend a lot of time and money pushing their approach to reading instruction, regardless of its efficacy. Principals and teachers can become “brand loyal” to reading programs and instructional approaches that we learned early in our careers. Parents don’t know what fluent, grade-level reading sounds like, so we don’t know to do extra reading at home, find a tutor, or raise hell when our kids aren’t reading well, and most of our kids aren’t; two-thirds of American fourth-graders cannot read at grade level.

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What should we be doing? Reading research has demonstrated — for several decades — that early reading instruction needs to include systematic phonics. Kindergartners, first-graders, and second-graders (and arguably beyond) should have this as part of their daily literacy instruction. This needs to be embedded every day, for many years. Great teachers and strong curriculum make this a fun and easy portion of reading instruction.

An additional challenge is preparing teachers — both current and new — to teach reading well. A National Council on Teacher Quality analysis last year of more than 700 teacher prep programs found that only 25% present a research-based approach to reading instruction, and 40% still use debunked methods. Only a quarter of the programs earned an ‘A’ on the evaluation; 50% received a failing grade.

How do we change this? We need to pass laws that prioritize kids learning to read above publishers’ profits and education schools’ preferences. As a professional community, we teacher-prep leaders need to hold ourselves and our institutions to higher standards. In sum, we need to ensure school districts can only adopt research-based reading programs and that teachers — current and new — are well prepared and using research-based approaches to reading instruction. This is what many teachers want, and what all kids deserve.

We need to ensure teachers and kids are only getting the “good stuff.”

This guest essay reflects the views of Mayme Hostetter, president of New York City-based Relay Graduate School of Education.

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The Sunday Essay Yesterday at 5.00am

The sunday essay: my genderfluid god.

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Some thoughts on my queer and Sikh identities, and how they mesh and collide.

The Sunday Essay  is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.

S undays were exciting, as they promised crispy bread pakora and chai over Punjabi chatter. If I was lucky, there would be jelabi, an orange spiral of sweet goodness prepped in the hot, crowded kitchen. I’d gulp it down in a single bite, sitting under the paintings of martyrs being scalped and buried alive. 

Afterwards, I’d run into the kitchen with sticky hands and an empty plate. I could feel the heat on the hairs of my arms from the giant puddle of oil in the wok; hear the sound of metal clanging against heads of garlic; see the kind face of a man pouring more water into the refill zone and turbans shining under the fluorescent lighting. The langar hall promised a warm meal for all. 

My nani (maternal grandmother in Punjabi), with her round sunglasses and white shawls, hoisted me onto her knees to tell me stories of Sikhi and the origins of langar. Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the first Sikh guru of ten, was given 21 rupees to start a business. He met weary and tired religious travellers on his way to the city. He offered to give them money, but they said receiving money from a well-off man felt degrading. So Guru Nanak brought food and cooked it, sitting on the floor with the religious folks and exchanging stories. This created the tradition of langar, where we all sit together on the floor to symbolise our equality in God’s eyes. 

So we sit on blue mats, our feet equally cold in the heatless room. My father spends more time in the langar hall than in the prayer room. This is where he chats with the men he met in small Onehunga flats when they were starving migrants. Everyone is welcome to langar; for this purpose, the langar hall and kitchen are always separate from the worship room. There is no need to thank a God you do not believe in to accept our kindness. 

reading is useful essay

T he most significant act of devotion as a Sikh is to take care of the world around us, because we believe we are simultaneously part of God as well as God’s creation. Through cooking meals, donating money, volunteering and teaching children or elderly people, Sikhs are worshipping God. This act is called seva. 

At age 12, I followed my nani’s loose pastel scarf into the gurdwara (place of worship) when I noticed a group of elderly women, heads covered in devotion with bright scarves, reciting the Punjabi alphabet. Their voices sounded tender yet powerful, an elder again becoming a child. Nani explained that she was the only educated girl out of her six sisters. Despite nani’s desire to attend university, she felt unsafe being the only woman to attend the local campus. 

At home, I would ask my father how my dadi ( paternal grandmother) would reply to his letters when it cost a dollar for every minute he called home. She would ask a village girl to read it out loud to her, sipping chai in her pale and sunny home, the words a blur of jumbled letters. How strange for my religion to create a new text for the benefit of lower-caste people and women, only to leave generations of women uneducated in the name of culture. I imagined my nani as a girl, curled up in her grandmother’s bed with a stomach full of fresh milk, hearing bedtime stories of Sikh liberation. A light switched off and a promise of a better world tomorrow.

Our current guru is Guru Granth Sahib, a book written in Gurmukhi. All these bright scarves, spent in devotion to guru, they could not see. I pray for them, as they are a part of me; their joy at reading is mine. 

Through people’s acts of seva, I learnt how to read Gurmukhi. We often discussed religious stories, and I became fascinated with the concept of gender in Sikhi. God does not have a gender, as they (God) existed before the manmade idea of gender. God is formless, transcendent. We dance with them, we are them, we are a part of their creation, and if we align ourselves right with the prayers and avoidance of maya (illusions of the world like drugs, beauty standards, wealth and competition with one another) we could join them in the centre of the universe. 

In Sikhi, the word for God is ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ( pronounced wa-he-gu-roo) , translating to “ teacher of the air”. As we speak, we transmit knowledge; within this knowledge, God is present, guiding our hands gently. What is more genderfluid than the air itself? 

reading is useful essay

O n the other hand, my Sikh identity is at odds with my queerness. Sometimes, at parties, my shoe kicking into the dirt of West Auckland backyards, I’d make comments about God, and they would be met with dismissive laughter. Religion is a bit of a joke in queer communities, and after centuries of being at odds with one another, who can blame them? Religion and queerness mimic the patterns of an overdomineering mother, wishing to craft her child out of the clay from the lakeside, and a child with fast feet. Neither realise that they cannot exist without each other; in their moulding and destruction of one another, they create one another. 

Over the coffee table covered with Punjabi newsletters and biscuits, my nani laughed about a story of two women marrying. I often think of being a child, listening to my nana’s (maternal grandfather in Punjabi) prayer as the sun dips away. The gentle pull of his hands as he moves over the prayer book. The birds easing to sleep; the sweet scent of mothballs from my grandmother’s shawl. Queerness is a religion: a devotion to discovering oneself. Maybe it’s selfish to want more than one religion, to want a God and a girl to understand it too.

Since I was a child, sprinting through the hallways wearing a bandana and jeans instead of a salwar kameez with a dupatta, I knew I was different. My bisexuality often manifests as isolation from the right way of performing femininity. Men and women occupy different spaces in the temple, sitting opposite one another for cultural rather than religious reasons. In protest, I often followed my nana  to the men’s section; a long-haired girl wearing a loosely wrapped scarf with her boyish jumpers. 

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When I am in front of the guru, I remind myself that he knows who I am, as he has created me as much as I have created him. Gurnanak ( another way of saying Guru Nanak Dev Ji) often becomes an imaginary friend whenever I hear homophobic remarks in the gurdwara. I imagine his disbelief that we are still thinking about gender as a set of rules to follow – doesn’t this count as an illusion of the world? 

I often think of the twelve-year-old version of Gurnanak who refused to wear a religious string that only upper-caste boys were permitted to wear, his steely calmness when he explained, as a child, that he is not brought closer to God by pretending he is better than God’s other creations. 

While the challenges of Punjabi homophobia and transphobia exist, I have to remember that Sikhi is a religion created out of a warzone. I am resilient, both as a queer individual and as a Sikh. We transform the world, carving spaces of equality. In my home, there is always food for all, and gender is just an illusion we mess around with.

The Cambridge University Boat Club women’s blue boat during a training session in freezing fog on the River Great Ouse in Cambridgeshire during February 2024.

Pulling together: how Cambridge came to dominate the Boat Race – a photo essay

The race along the River Thames between England’s two greatest universities spans 195 years of rivalry and is now one of the world’s oldest and most famous amateur sporting events. Our photographer has been spending time with the Cambridge University Boat Club over the past few months as they prepare for 2024’s races

T he idea of a Boat Race between the two universities dates back to 1829, sparked into life by a conversation between Old Harrovian schoolfriends Charles Merivale, a student at the time at St John’s College Cambridge, and Charles Wordsworth who was at Christ Church Oxford. On 12 March that year, following a meeting of the newly formed Cambridge University Boat Club, a letter was sent to Oxford.

The University of Cambridge hereby challenge the University of Oxford to row a match at or near London each in an eight-oar boat during the Easter vacation.

From then, the Cambridge University Boat Club has existed to win just one race against just one opponent, something Cambridge has got very good at recently. Last year the Light Blues won every race: the open-weight men’s and women’s races, both reserve races, plus both lightweight races – six victories, no losses, an unprecedented clean sweep. Cambridge women’s open-weight boat, or blue boat, has won the last six Boat Races while the men’s equivalent have won five out of the last seven. In such an unpredictable race, where external factors can play a large part, this dominance is startling.

Rough water as the two Cambridge women’s boats make their way along the River Thames near Putney Embankment during the Cambridge University Boat Race trials in December 2023.

Thames trials

Rough water as the two women’s boats make their way along the River Thames near Putney Embankment during the Cambridge University Boat Race trials.

It’s a mid-December day by the River Thames. The sky and water merge together in a uniform battleship grey and the bitter north wind whips the tops off the waves. Outside a Putney boathouse two groups of tense-looking women dressed in duck-egg blue tops and black leggings with festive antlers in their hair are huddling together, perhaps for warmth, maybe for solidarity. The odd nervous bout of laughter breaks out. For some of them this is about to be their first experience of rowing on the Tideway, a baptism of fire on the famous stretch of London water where the Boat Race takes place. “Perfect conditions,” remarks Paddy Ryan, the head coach for Cambridge University women, for this is trial eights day, when friends in different boats duel for coveted spots in the top boat.

A couple of hours later these women along with their male equivalents will have pushed themselves to the absolute limit, so much so that several of the men are seen trying to throw up over the side of their boats at the finish under Chiswick Bridge. This may be brutal but it’s just the start. For these students the next few months are going to be incredibly tough, balancing academic work with training like a professional athlete. Through the harshest months of the year they will be focused on preparing for the end of March and a very simple goal: beating Oxford in the Boat Race.

Agony for one of the men’s boats after the finish of the race on the River Thames near Chiswick Bridge during the Cambridge University Boat Race trials in December 2023.

Agony for one of the men’s boats after the finish of the race near Chiswick Bridge during the Cambridge University Boat Race trials.

Two of the Cambridge University Boat Club women’s boats head out in the early morning for a training session on the Great Ouse, Cambridgeshire on 28 February 2024.

Ely early mornings

Two of the women’s boats head out in the early morning for a training session on the Great Ouse.

Early winter mornings on the banks of the Great Ouse, well before the sun has risen, can be pretty bleak. In the pitch black a batch of light blue minivans drop off the men and women rowers together at the sleek Ely boathouse that was opened in 2016 at the cost of £4.9m – it’s here that all Cambridge’s on-water training takes place. Very soon a fleet of boats carrying all the teams takes to the water for a training session that may last a couple of hours. Then it’s a quick change, a lift to the train station and back to Cambridge for morning lectures.

The Cambridge University Boat Club women’s squad are dropped off at their Ely boathouse by minibus at 6am for a training session on the Great Ouse.

The women’s squad head into the Ely boathouse after a 6am drop-off.

As a rower descends the stairs to the bays where the boats are stored, there is a clear indication of why it was built and why they are there. “This is where we prepare to win Boat Races,” a sign says. Since this boathouse was built, Cambridge have won 30 of the 37 races across all categories.

The Cambridge University Boat Club men’s squad stretch in the boathouse before an early morning training session at their Ely training site in Cambridgeshire.

Top: The men’s squad stretch in the boathouse before an early morning training session and a member of the men’s blue boat descends the stairs into where the boats are kept. Below: One of the men’s teams set off for early morning training and the women’s blue boat rows past the women’s lightweight crew during a training session.

It’s a far cry from the old tin sheds with barely any heating and no showers. These current facilities are impressive, enabling the entire men’s and women’s squads to be there at the same time and get boats out.

The Cambridge University Boat Club men’s blue boat prepare to derig their boat at their Ely training site before packing it on a trailer to be transported down to London for the Boat Race.

Top: The men’s blue boat prepare to derig their boat at their Ely training site. Above: The women’s blue boat put their vessel back in the boathouse after a training session on the Great Ouse.

But it’s not just the boathouse that has contributed so much, it’s also the stretch of water they train on. In a year when floods have affected so many parts of the country it has really come into its own. Paddy Ryan, the chief women’s coach, explains: “Along this stretch the river is actually higher than the surrounding land. The water levels are carefully managed by dikes and pumps. As a result we haven’t lost a single session to flooding. That’s not the case for Oxford. I believe their boathouse has been flooded multiple times this year, unable to get to their boats. We’ve had multiple storms but we’ve been able to row through them all.”

The Cambridge University Boat Club men’s third boat practises on the Great Ouse at their Ely training site on 20 March 2024.

The men’s third boat practises on the Great Ouse.

It’s a flat, unforgiving landscape, especially in midwinter, definitely not the prettiest stretch of water, but Cambridge don’t care. Ryan says: “It might be a little dull on the viewing perspective but we could row on for 27km before needing to turn round. We have a 5km stretch that is marked out every 250m. We are lucky to have it.”

The men’s blue boat practise their starts on the long straight on the Great Ouse at their Ely training site on 20 March 2024.

The men’s blue boat practise their starts on the long straight on the Great Ouse.

Members of the Cambridge University Boat Club men’s squad using a mirror to look at their technique during a session on ergo machines at the Goldie boathouse in Cambridge during February 2024.

The sweat box

Members of the men’s squad check on their technique with the use of a mirror at the Goldie boathouse.

The old-fashioned Goldie boathouse is right in the centre of Cambridge perched on the banks of the River Cam. Built in 1873, its delicate exterior belies what goes on inside. This is the boat club’s pain cave, where the rowers sweat buckets, pushing themselves over and over again; it’s a good job the floor is rubberised and easy to wipe clean.

A wreath to the founder of the Boat Race, Charles Merivale, in the upstairs room at the Goldie boathouse which commemorates Cambridge crews that have competed in the Boat Race from 1829.

A wreath to Charles Merivale, the founder of the Boat Race, and wood panelling in the upstairs room at the Goldie boathouse which commemorates Cambridge crews that have competed in the Boat Race from 1829.

Seb Benzecry, men’s president of the Cambridge University Boat Club, sweats profusely during a long session on an ergo machine at the Goldie boathouse, Cambridge in February 2024.

(Top) Seb Benzecry, men’s president of the Cambridge University Boat Club, and (above) Martin Amethier, a member of the reserve Goldie crew, sweat during sessions on ergo machines.

Iris Powell of the women’s blue boat of the Cambridge University Boat Club, performing pull-ups during a training session at the Goldie boathouse, Cambridge on 5 March 2024.

Iris Powell of the women’s blue boat (above) performs pull-ups during a training session.

Hannah Murphy, the cox of the women’s blue boat, urges on four of her crew – Gemma King, Megan Lee, Jenna Armstrong and Clare Hole – as they undertake a long session on the ergo machines at the Goldie boathouse, Cambridge.

Above left: Hannah Murphy, the cox of the women’s blue boat, urges on four of her crew (left to right) Gemma King, Megan Lee, Jenna Armstrong and Clare Hole, as they undertake a long session on the ergo machines. Above right: Kenny Coplan, a member of the men’s blue boat crew, looks exhausted then writes in his times after his session on an ergo machine (below).

Kenny Coplan from the USA writes in his timings after a session on an ergo machine at the Goldie boathouse, Cambridge.

Brutal sessions on the various ergo machines, where thousands of metres are clocked and recorded, are a staple of the training regime set in place. If there is any slacking off the students just need to look up at one of the walls where a map of the Boat Race course hangs. The “S” shape of the Thames has been carefully coloured in the correct shade of blue and record timings for various key points on the course have been written in for both men and women. All but one record, and that one is shared, is held by Cambridge.

Four members of the men’s squad open up the doors of the Goldie boathouse looking out on the River Cam as they undertake a long session on the ergo machines.

Paddy Ryan, the women’s chief coach, talks to the women’s blue boat during a training session on the River Great Ouse in February.

A key ingredient in any successful team is the coaching. Cambridge’s setup is stable and well established. Paddy Ryan is the chief women’s coach, a genial, tall Australian, he has been part of the women’s coaching team since 2013. The care and devotion to his squad is perfectly clear. “I have my notebook next to my bed so I can jot things down. I wake up in the middle of the night going: am I making the right decisions? I care about them as people and I need to manage them … We joke as coaches that we are teaching some of the smartest people on the planet how to pull on a stick.”

Rob Baker, the chief men’s coach, has Cambridge rowing in the blood. Born and bred in the city, his father was a university boatman for 25 years. He even married into the sport – his wife, Hayley, rowed for Cambridge as a lightweight – so it was no surprise that he became part of the coaching setup way back in 2001. He was the first full-time women’s coach in 2015 then moved to take over the men in 2018.

Rob Baker, the men’s chief coach for the Cambridge University Boat Club, talks to his blue boat at their Ely training site in Cambridgeshire on 20 March 2024.

Rob Baker, the men’s chief coach, talks to his blue boat at their Ely training site.

Apart from an obvious role in the development of rowing skills, a key part of their job is making sure there is a balance for their student athletes. They understand they have to juggle training needs. “Every week we have a general plan,” says Baker, “but then someone might have an extra class or supervision they’ve got to do so we have to move around it. They are studying at one of the most competitive universities in the world with the highest standards so you’ve got to give them space to do that properly.” He goes on: “But when they get on the start line for their race, they’ll be just as competitive as if they were professionals.”

Jenna Armstrong and Seb Benzecry, the respective women’s and men’s presidents of Cambridge University Boat Club, hold a meeting to discuss their plans in the Great Hall at Jesus College on 5 March 2024.

The presidents

Jenna Armstrong and Seb Benzecry discuss their plans in the Great Hall at Jesus College.

Every year one man and one woman are elected presidents to represent Cambridge University Boat Club. They are the captains and leaders, not only responsible for helping design the training programme in conjunction with the coaches but also making budgetary and tactical decisions along the way. This year both of them, Jenna Armstrong and Seb Benzecry, are from the same college, Jesus, which helps the communication between the two of them. They share ideas and knowledge, thoughts and worries. Their lives, for these intense few months, are a juggling act.

Armstrong is a 30-year-old from New Jersey, and doing a PhD in physiology. Once a very keen competitive junior skier she was forced to abandon her hopes of a career on the slopes after a number of serious knee injuries. She only started rowing in 2011 and only became aware of the Boat Race when she saw it on TV a couple of years later.

Jenna Armstrong, the women’s president of the Cambridge University Boat Club, cycling down the Chimney, the grand entrance to Jesus College where she is a member, to go to the other side of the city to carry out more of her PhD research at the department of physiology, development and neuroscience.

Jenna Armstrong, cycling down the Chimney, the grand entrance to Jesus College, to go to the other side of the city to carry out more of her PhD research at the department of physiology, development and neuroscience.

The research she carries out at the university labs could be turn out to be life-saving. “I study mitochondrial function in placentas from women from all over the world to learn how genetic and environmental factors during pregnancy can influence placental metabolism and impact the health of both mother and baby. I’m particularly interested in growth restriction which affects about 10% of babies worldwide. That can have lifelong implications for these babies and currently we don’t have any treatment for this.”

Benzecry, 27, is studying for a PhD in film and screen studies, and comes from a completely different rowing background. He grew up just a stone’s throw from the Boat Race course and went to a school on the banks of the Thames. This will be his 14th year of competitive rowing but his fourth and last Boat Race.

“ I remember one year my birthday fell on race day and we watched after my birthday party. Because we live fairly close to the course, I’ve always felt connected to the race.”

Seb Benzecry, the men’s president of the Cambridge University Boat Club, stands next to an Antony Gormley statue in the Quincentenary Library at Jesus College as he conducts research for his dissertation as part of his PhD in film and screen studies.

Seb Benzecry stands next to an Antony Gormley statue in the Quincentenary Library at Jesus College as he conducts research for his dissertation which forms part of his PhD in film and screen studies.

Talking about how hard it is to get the right balance between academic student life and rowing, Benzecry says: “I guess you have to accept there are many, many things you can’t do, you just don’t have time for during the season. You have to put the blinkers on.”

Armstrong says: “I have to be very prepared, very strategic and organised. I pack everything the night before, and then once I leave my room in the morning, I don’t go back. That allows me to go to training, go to the lab, go to training again. It’s surreal actually, to come to a place like Cambridge, have one of the best educations in the world on top of the most incredible rowing experiences in the world. We have a thing now in the boat, when we are doing something incredibly hard, I say this is my ideal Saturday, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I would rather be here than in bed or on a date. And I make everyone else say it with me too. I’d rather be nowhere else.”

Benzecry states: “When it’s really bad, when training is so hard, we say Oxford aren’t doing this, they could never do this. It’s an incredibly powerful thing to be thinking we work harder than them, our culture is better than them. They don’t want to go hard as we do – they might think they do but they don’t, they just don’t have it.”

The Cambridge University Boat Club men’s and women’s blue boats during a training session on the Great Ouse, Cambridgeshire on.

Integration

The men’s and women’s blue boats during a training session on the River Great Ouse in February.

Until 1 August 2020, there were three separate university boat clubs in Cambridge: one for open-weight men, one for lightweight men, and one for open-weight and lightweight women. Since they merged to become one club, it has undoubtedly helped with everyone sharing the same resources and motivating and inspiring one another. No one is more important and everyone has a key part to play in the result. This year, Oxford have followed suit.

Baker says: “I definitely feel, for the athletes themselves, it makes a big difference. They all feel like they’re contributing to one common goal. Every cog in the wheel has to do its job but for sure it feels like one big team on a mission.”

Benzecry explains: “We’re seeing each other train, we’re all out on the water at the same time, we’re supporting each other throughout the season, building a sense of momentum for the whole club towards the races. Everyone’s just inspiring each other all the time and I think that’s been such a sort of cultural shift for Cambridge.”

The men’s blue boat pack their boat on to a trailer for the trip down to London for the Boat Race at their Ely training site, Cambridgeshire.

The men’s blue boat pack their craft on to a trailer at their Ely training site ready for the trip down to London for the Boat Race.

Siobhan Cassidy, the chair of the Boat Race, knows from first-hand how the integration has helped. She rowed for the Light Blues in 1995 and had a key role in the transition. “We could see the advantages of working together, collaborating as a bigger team, the positive impact we felt that could have on performance. But not just the output, actually the whole experience for the young people taking part.”

Siobhan Cassidy, the chair of the Boat Race, poses for a portrait in the Thames Rowing Club at Putney Embankment.

Siobhan Cassidy, the chair of the Boat Race, pictured at the Thames Rowing Club at Putney Embankment.

This Saturday, if the weather holds, an estimated 250,000 people, the vast majority of whom have no allegiance to one shade of blue or the other, will pack the banks of the Thames to see these races. It’s one of the largest free events in Britain. Broadcast live on BBC One, the race is also beamed to 200 countries across the world.

The starting stone for the University Boat Race at Putney Embankment.

The starting stone for the University Boat Race and pavement inscription: “The best leveller is the river we have in common” at Putney Embankment.

A map of the Boat Race course at the Goldie boathouse, with the Thames coloured in Cambridge blue and record timings written in for men and women showing almost total Cambridge dominance.

A map of the Boat Race course at the Goldie boathouse, with the Thames coloured in Cambridge blue and record timings written in for men and women showing almost total Cambridge dominance.

A sporting pinnacle being contested on a fast-flowing, unpredictable river by two teams of university students – it’s pretty bizarre. But maybe it’s that quirkiness that keeps the race, after almost two hundred years, still going strong. And even more bizarre to think that Cambridge, the current dominant force in the Boat Race, a sporting event that can’t shrug off its elitist stereotype, owes so much of that success to such egalitarian principles.

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A young girl runs across a grassy lawn, trailed by a small dachshund.

The Dogs Helping the Covenant Children Find Their Way Back

To heal after a mass shooting, the Covenant School families have turned to therapy, faith, one another — and a lot of dogs.

Monroe Joyce, 10, runs with one of two dachshunds taken in by her family. She is one of several children who now have a dog after surviving the Covenant School shooting. Credit...

Supported by

Emily Cochrane

By Emily Cochrane

Photographs by Erin Schaff

Emily Cochrane and Erin Schaff spoke with more than a dozen Covenant School parents, students, staff and their dogs.

  • Published March 24, 2024 Updated March 28, 2024

Two of April Manning’s children, Mac and Lilah, had just survived the mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville. They needed stability and time to grieve.

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So she did everything she could to keep the family dog, Owen, their sweet but ailing 15-year-old golden retriever, with them for as long as possible. She pushed back his final trip to the vet, keeping him comfortable as he slowly moved around the house.

Getting another dog was the furthest thing from her mind. But a few weeks after the shooting, her children sat her down for an important presentation.

Prepared with a script and a PowerPoint — “Why We Should Get (Another) Dog” — they rattled through research showing the mental health benefits of having one. It could limit their chances of developing PTSD and help them feel safe. Playing together would get them outside and boost their happiness.

Ms. Manning and her husband considered. Maybe a second dog was possible.

Two children pet dogs in a living room.

First came Chip, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Then, after Owen succumbed to old age, came Birdie, a miniature poodle and Bernese Mountain dog mix. And in taking them in, the Mannings were far from alone.

In the year since Tennessee’s worst school shooting, in which three third-graders and three staff members were killed by a former student, more than 40 dogs have been taken in by families at Covenant, a small Christian school of about 120 families.

“I really only expected them to help in a cuddly kind of way, like just to snuggle the kids when they’re upset ,” Ms. Manning said. “But I wasn’t really expecting all the other benefits from them.”

To spend time with the Covenant families is to understand how they have relied on one another, traditional psychological treatments and mental health counseling, and their Christian faith to hold them together.

But it is also to see how often what they needed — a distraction, a protector, a friend who could listen, something untouched by darkness — came from a dog.

An Immediate Response

Dogs greeted the surviving children at Sandy Hook Elementary School as they returned to a refurbished middle school in 2013. A dozen golden retrievers were on hand in Orlando to provide comfort after the deadly attack at a L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in 2016. The therapy dogs who tended to the surviving students in Parkland, Fla., made the school yearbook .

“Over this period of sort of, 35,000 years, dogs have become incredibly adept at socializing with humans, so they’re sensitive to our emotional state,” said Dr. Nancy Gee, who oversees the Center for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Even brief, minute-long interactions with dogs and other animals can reduce cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, research by Dr. Gee and others has shown, providing a possible lifeline for veterans struggling with PTSD and others recovering from trauma.

And on the day of the Covenant shooting, dogs were immediately there to help. Covey, the headmaster’s dog, was at a nearby firehouse, where dozens of staff members and students were evacuated. Squid, a retriever mix, was at the children’s hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, helping to comfort the staff if needed.

When the students who survived were put on a school bus to be reunited with their anguished parents, Sgt. Bo, a police dog, was sitting at their side.

Officer Faye Okert, the dog’s handler with the Metro Nashville Police, handed out a baseball card of dog facts to distract and comfort the children.

“The focus was on him,” said Officer Okert. “You had smiles after what they had been through.”

After families reunited, counselors offered clear advice: To help your child, get a dog. Or borrow a neighbor’s.

That led several parents to connect with Comfort Connections, a nonprofit comfort dog organization. Jeanene Hupy, the group’s founder, had seen firsthand how therapy dogs had helped the Sandy Hook students and started her own organization once she moved to Nashville.

The group, which oversees a menagerie of golden retrievers, a gentle pit bull and a massive English mastiff, began its work by visiting individual homes in the days after the shooting. Then, when students returned to class weeks later, the dogs were once again there.

They were something to look forward to, in the moments when walking through the school doors felt overwhelming. And when there were painful reminders — a water bottle clattering to the floor, an unsettling history lesson on war or the absence of a friend — a child could slip away and cuddle a dog.

As Ms. Hupy put it, something special happens “when you bring in something that loves you more than it loves itself, which is these guys.”

A Reassuring Presence

First it was a joke, then a reality: Everyone was getting a dog.

Fueled by community donations and her own money, Ms. Hupy began connecting several parents and puppies. Even for families who could easily afford a new dog, Ms. Hupy and her trainers dramatically eased the logistical hurdles by finding and training puppies that seemed perfect fits to each family.

The Anderson girls shrieked and cried with joy when they learned they were getting a dog, and have now taught Leo how to flaunt sunglasses and do tricks. The Hobbs children constantly scoop up Lady Diana Spencer, often fashionably dressed in a string of pearls or sweaters.

The dogs are also there in the harder moments, too, like when an ambulance or police car drives by blaring its siren or when the memorial ribbons in their neighborhood remind them of what was lost.

“Sometimes it’s just nice to have a giant soft pillow that doesn’t need to talk to you and just cuddle it,” said Evangeline Anderson, now 11.

And if the dogs chew on a shoe or make a mess on a rug, Ms. Manning said, it is a lesson in how to deal with conflicting emotions.

“We still love them and we’re so glad we have them — both things can be true,” she said. “Just like we can be really nervous about going back to school and still also be excited to do it.”

And maybe, the parents realized, it was not just for the children.

Rachel and Ben Gatlin were driving back from vacation on the day of the shooting. That has meant grappling with the heaviness of survival and knowing that Mr. Gatlin, a history teacher who carried a pistol on his ankle for personal protection, could have run toward the shooter that day.

And while their new dog, Buddy, has adapted to the bossiness of their young children and has developed a penchant for sock consumption, he has also kept the adults’ thoughts focused in the moment. Tending to his needs has served as a reminder of their own.

“When you see it working, you’re in total comfort,” Ms. Gatlin said.

Even the school’s chaplain, Matthew Sullivan, found that the stories of new puppies being shared each day in chapel were “wearing me down in a good way.”

“I kind of wanted to enter into the experience of all these families firsthand,” he said.

Now Hank, a slightly anxious, floppy-eared Scooby-Doo doppelgänger, has been adopted into his home, which had been a little empty without his grown children.

The Alternatives

Not everyone got a dog.

For the McLeans, the solution was two rabbits.

“It’s an incredible distraction to their reality,” Abby McLean said of her children, cupping her hands to mimic cradling a rabbit on her shoulder. “I find myself occasionally doing it as well.”

Another family added Ginny, a tortoise with a possible seven-decade life span, to the mix of animals already in their house.

“For having lost people early in life — there was something that equated to me in that, that there was a longevity to it, to a tortoise,” said Phil Shay, who picked out the tortoise with his 12-year-old daughter, Ever.

Still, the dogs far outnumber the other pets. And every day they can make a little difference.

The first night that George, Jude and Amos Bolton had tried to sleep alone without their parents after the shooting, the slightest grumble from the ice machine or the dryer had been too much. Their mother, Rachel, who had maintained that she liked dogs, just not in her house, soon agreed to take in Hudson, a miniature Goldendoodle puppy with doe-like eyes and wild curls.

“We didn’t realize the dogs could create comfort for people,” Jude, now 10, said, his hands ruffling Hudson’s ears. And when Hudson came home, he added, “he’s just been comforting us ever since.”

It is now easier to sleep through the night, safe with the knowledge that Hudson is there.

“All my friends joke, they’re like, ‘I can’t believe you’re a dog person now,’” Ms. Bolton said. But this dog, she added, “has healed this family.”

Read by Emily Cochrane

Audio produced by Patricia Sulbarán .

Emily Cochrane is a national reporter for The Times covering the American South, based in Nashville. More about Emily Cochrane

Erin Schaff is a photojournalist for The Times, covering stories across the country. More about Erin Schaff

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    In nonfiction, we recommend a painter's memoir, a group biography of three jazz giants, a posthumous essay collection by the great critic Joan Acocella and a journalist's look at American ...

  27. The Sunday Essay: My genderfluid God

    The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand. S undays were exciting, as they promised crispy bread pakora and chai over Punjabi chatter. If I was lucky, there ...

  28. Pulling together: how Cambridge came to dominate the Boat Race

    The race along the River Thames between England's two greatest universities spans 195 years of rivalry and is now one of the world's oldest and most famous amateur sporting events. Our ...

  29. The Dogs Helping the Covenant Children Find Their Way Back

    First came Chip, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Then, after Owen succumbed to old age, came Birdie, a miniature poodle and Bernese Mountain dog mix.