Reading is good for you
World Book and Copyright Day was just celebrated. We talk to people about the dying hobby of reading
Along time ago, when there was no television, people discovered the joy of reading and grew up with books, reading anything that they could lay their hands on. But in this age of television and the Internet, when children seem to be more interested in what’s happening in Hannah Montana’s life or the adventures of Zack and Cody, do books really have a chance?
“Books transport you to a different world created by your own imagination. I wanted my daughter to enjoy this magical world. It took me a while and a lot of effort, exposing her to different authors. But she’s slowly developing a taste for books,” says Madhavi, mother of a 11-year-old. Most parents admit that reading as a hobby is dying because there are too many alternatives like television and computer games available.
“But the pressure that today’s children have to go through to do well in academics is another major factor. They’re so burdened with studies that they don’t get time to do extra reading. In this context, parents are also to be blamed as they feel that as long as the kids are doing well in their exams, there’s no need to encourage them to read books for pleasure. As a result, they become one-dimensional, thus lacking observatory and analytical ability,” points out Pankaj Bisht, noted Hindi litterateur.
Mariam Karim Ahlawat, award-winning author of children’s books, couldn’t agree more. “Reading needs a different skill — that of creating your own visuals in your mind’s eye, while your physical eye focuses on the printed word. If this skill isn’t developed, children stop reading books. Nowadays with so much exposure to visual entertainment, they are used to pre-received images, which someone else has imagined for them. This is a great loss,” she says.
While there’s this notion that the future generation is at a risk of going straight from an oral to a digital culture, skipping over the writing and reading culture in the process, many parents feel it’s too simple an analysis to blame this on some visual medium. They feel that it’s more about each individual child’s taste and aptitude. “I have two children and I tried the same methods to inculcate the habit of reading in them. But while my 14-year-old daughter is a voracious reader, my son, who is 15, does not like to read,” says teacher Shivani Saxena.
To a certain extent, the credit of bringing children back to reading can be attributed to JK Rowling, who created history with the Harry Potter series, but a lot needs to be done, both by writers and publishing houses, say experts. “There was a spurt in children reading in English when the Harry Potter books flooded the market. Teen books are still quite popular, but one can’t really compare them to reading the classics, which teens can and should read. Unfortunately, book publishing is mainly commercial, not for the improvement of the intellect of society. A lot needs to be done so that we can make children turn the pages,” says Mariam.
NILAKSHI BHATTACHARYYA
Get your child hooked to a book
Let your child see you read. Share information from your own reading with your child. Take books with you wherever you go. Make library visits a family routine. Subscribe to children’s magazines.
Let your child see you read. Share information from your own reading with your child. Take books with you wherever you go. Make library visits a family routine. Subscribe to children’s magazines.