In their article “What Reading Does For the Mind” authors Anne E. Cunningham and Keith Stanovich propose that the more you read the more you will be able read.
Weak Readers Read Less and Become Weaker
The combination of deficient decoding skills, lack of practice and difficult materials results in unrewarding reading experiences that lead to less involvement in reading related activities. Thus, a situation coined “The Matthew Effect” often occurs – the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Advantages of Regular Reading
In other words, those with poor reading skills do not want to read and, therefore, their reading does not improve. Contrarily, those who can read fluently read more and benefit from all the other advantages that reading offers. For example, developing automatic word recognition, general language skills, vocabulary, familiarity with complex syntactic structures and improving background knowledge.
Reading Enriches Vocabulary Not Speech
Since words found in print tend to be less common, a person’s vocabulary develops due to language exposure through reading not through oral language. Spoken language tends to be repetitive and, therefore, full of high frequency words. In contrast, less frequent words, which are still important for daily functioning, tend to be found in print and not in spoken language. As a result, speech is lexically impoverished compared to written language.
Low Frequency Words in Children’s Books
Interestingly, words in children’s books are considerably rarer than those used in speech in prime-time adult television. In addition, magazines have about three times as many opportunities for new word learning than prime-time TV and adult conversation. Hence, conversation is not a substitute for reading and does not enhance vocabulary growth.
Reading Increases Verbal Intelligence
Controlled tests indicate that reading contributes to verbal intelligence. In addition, More stringent impartial tests that excluded prior comprehension ability and non-verbal ability show that reading volume makes a significant contribution to vocabulary, general knowledge, spelling and verbal fluency.
Reading Fights Against Aging
Furthermore, reading can help to compensate for the normally harmful effects of aging on mental ability. In contrast, the consequences of some mass-viewing television programmes can have a negative effect on knowledge acquisition and can lead to misinformation.
Teacher and Parents - Encourage Avid Readers
Why learn to read and read regularly? An early start to reading leads to more reading later on. Those who read a lot will enhance their verbal intelligence – reading will make them ‘smarter’. To promote good reading habits, children should be provided with as many reading experiences as possible. Those who read regularly will improve their reading skills, read more and benefit from the ‘Matthew Effect’.
Sources:
- Cunningham, Anne E. and Stanovitch, Keith. “What Reading Does For the Mind” American Educator, American Federation of Teachers. pg. 8-15, Spring /Summer 1998
Lesley Lanir - Freelance writer, lecturer and teacher trainer Lesley Lanir, writes on foreign language learning disorders, linguistics, and literature.
