Reading For Pleasure

Not only does reading help us improve academically, develop our personalities and increase benefits to our personal well-being as discussed above. When we learn to read for pleasure, that is, when we choose to read of our own free will, we allow ourselves to experience other worlds and roles in our imagination.

Research shows when a child reads for pleasure and gets ‘hooked on books’ without realising and without effort they gain nearly all of the so called language skills many people are so concerned about. They will become adequate readers, acquire a broad vocabulary, improve general knowledge, develop the ability to understand and use complex grammatical constructions and develop a good writing style. Recent research has also found that the impact of reading for pleasure on the progress in vocabulary, arithmetic and spelling skills between the ages of 10 and 16 to be four times greater than the impact of having a parent with a degree.

The best way to encourage this development is by instilling in children a passion for reading. Children who love reading will read more and over time, choose literature which is more demanding and suitably challenging. It creates a virtuous circle: as the amount a child reads increases, their reading attainment improves, which in turn encourages them to read more. All reading makes a difference, but evidence suggests that reading for pleasure makes the most.