If you don't read, you can never lead

To begin with the quote of Francis Bacon , ‘Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested’. It means we should read all kinds of books. But some books which are very integral to our lives should be read and re-read like the scriptures.

Reading makes a man complete. It is also said that books are the never failing friends. In olden days, when there were very few distractions in the form of entertainment tools like TV, Cell phones, Computers etc, people used to spend their leisure time reading a host of books. Books were embedded in their everyday life – the place of which has been taken over by the cell phone nowadays.

It’s rightly said that reading a good book is as good as meeting the writer in person. Good books change our personality, broaden our perspective, empower us, encourage us, organize our thought-process, help us discipline our minds and so on…

Ironically enough, the habit of reading books nowadays has been taken over by a cell phone, which was initially a tool for two-way interaction only. This small communicating device has grown up to become a feature phone, which in turn has given rise to smart phones which house every facet of entertainment in itself, thus causing a death rattle for the growth of reading population of physical books.

The question arises now as to how we can bring the student community to the habit of reading once again. This is a pressing issue, which need to be addressed and redressed with iron-hand. The following few suggestions can be taken into consideration with a view to reviving the habit of reading among the student fraternity.

1. A student spends most of his time in the school in the company of teachers. School is a hub of learning as we all know. Therefore, we should integrate reading activity in literary club of the school as well as in school morning assembly on a regular basis.

2. Teachers should give assignments, projects and homeworks based on an exclusive reading materials accompanied with a viva-voce session related to the curriculum thereby compelling students to read the exclusive materials handed out to them by teachers.

3. Teachers of all subjects can make reading extra books mandatory for each student and keep aside some marks as a part of formative assessments for students. Teachers can design MCQs, True or False, Gap filling, Matching exercises from the books and make a worksheet at least once quarterly so as to revive the reading habit of extra books among student fraternity.

4. As a part of CCA activity in the school calendar, which calls for excusive reading-related activities. For example, review of books competition can be held as a part of CCCA or Literary Club Activities, story narration for three minutes can be one of the activities, Dialogue Delivery Competition of famous characters from plays of Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Rabindranath Tagore etc can also be taken up.

5. As students are passionate about gadgets nowadays, gadget review competition can also be scheduled as a part of CCA activities. This will not only facilitate reading habit, but also give a fillip or boost up their speaking skills as well.

To conclude, we should always remember that reading opens up vistas of allied skills for each one of us. Right from enrichment of your vocabulary, disciplining your thoughts, broadening your horizon, enhancing your writing and communication skills, reading habit has a lot to offer to us. Reading promotes writing and speaking skills, which in today’s world are prerequisites for a student to get through competitive exams , job interviews and workplace promotion.

Therefore, gear up, pick up a book and start reading right away!