Why Reading is the Most Important Thing You Will Ever Do

By Cassandra James

There is nothing more important in life than the ability to read. Reading is the
most important thing a child can do. Yet so many parents don’t seem to realize
this. As a teacher of English in Thailand, one thing I find very frustrating is the
lack of reading that goes on by most Thai students. However, my friends who
are teachers in other countries say it’s not that much different there. So why do
more children not read and why is reading so important?

My mother taught me to read when I was three years old. Consequently, when I
started primary school I was the only kid who was in a corner reading a book
while all the other kids were learning their ABCs. I had a head start in education
that has never let me down. I’m not in my 40s and still read around 200 books a
year. I also read Internet articles, newspaper, magazines and even some comic
books (very popular here in Asia). All of this information has imbued my life with
knowledge and helped me in everything I do.

Children today have so many distractions – TV, Internet, computer games,

sports – that they think they don’t have time to read and quite frankly, they often
find reading boring compared to these other things. But, if you can teach your
child to enjoy books, that child has a companion for life and will always have the
knowledge he or she needs to be successful in everything they do.

But why is reading really so important

Words are our everyday tools. You use words in everything. You speak
thousands of words every day. Most people write something every day. A letter,
a resume, an article, a note, even two lines on a post-it – they all require words.
If you read, words will come easier to you simply because of the vocabulary you
will have. People who read are known to have larger vocabularies and usually
find it much easier to compose a written piece of given a speech.

Vocabulary. Many of today’s teenagers think vocabulary isn’t important. “Cool”,

“hot”, “fierce”, “rad”, - they think this vocabulary is all they need. Try interviewing
for a job that pays more than a supermarket checkout position, and see how far
using “fierce” will get you in a job interview. What you say puts a vision in the
other person’s mind of who you are. If you can express yourself eloquently, the
person hearing you has already decided you are intelligent. In most situations in
life, intelligence will get you where you want to go. Sounding intelligent helps
you and your path to that goal.

Information. Reading gives your information. Everything you will ever need to
know is available in a book somewhere. It’s available on the Internet or in
newspaper. If you love reading, you will find that getting information is easy for
you. In any job, if you know how to find the information you need, you are miles
ahead of your competition. Remember the old adage “Knowledge is power.”
The people who are often the most successful have knowledge and other
people pay them for that knowledge. Reading will give you any knowledge you
could ever need for any situation.

Imagination. Reading feeds your imagination. When I sit down with a book, I
am instantly lost in the world the author created. It doesn’t matter if I’m stuck in
a doctor’s waiting room for two hours, on a boring bus ride, or standing in a line
at the bank – I always have a book with me. In any boring situation I can
immediately transformed into a different place just by the power of a book. My
time is never wasted because, If somebody else makes me wait, I simply use
that time to read. Then what I learn from reading is put to use in the rest of my
life. As an only child, I spent thousands of hours reading. Consequently, I have
never been bored. I can always amuse myself and my imagination works
overtime thinking of all the places I’ve been and the people I’ve seen in books.

Inspiration. I write, I paint, and I teach. Books have given me the tools and the
power to do all of these things well. When I write an article for Associated
Content, my inspiration has often come from a line I’ve read in a book. My
paintings come from images I’ve seen in my head from a novel I’ve read. When
I teach, I teach my students with knowledge that has been in my head for
decades. Even I don’t know where I pulled these “useless bits of information”
from, but my students love it as I can usually tell them about most things they’re
interested in. Inspiration for everything I do in life comes from my love of books.
So teach your children to read. Instill in them a love of books and of reading and
your child will never be bored, never be lonely and never be lost for words. Your
child’s reading abilities will keep them involved, inspired and informed.

Everything they do from their first work in kindergarten to their career as a

doctor, teacher or author will all stem from the knowledge they have learned
from books. Reading is the most important thing you can teach your child
because, even when you are not there, they can still learn, still be amused and
still dream.

Reading really will be the lifeblood of everything they do and everything they
accomplish.