Reading is primarily an intellectual activity. Reading influences the extent and accuracy of the information and readers’ attitudes, morals, beliefs, and judgments. Regular and systematic reading sharpens the intellect, refines emotions, elevates tastes, and provides perspectives for living, preparing one for effective participation in academic and social life. Reading habit is a medium of change towards better citizenship, enrichment of information and knowledge, knowing the events and happening without physical presence and self-confidence. Reading is a tool of the acquisitive mind and a vehicle for obtaining ideas that cannot be transmitted verbally.
Reading is a person’s third eye; it has the power to see and observe what the other two cannot even think or dream. Reading widens up the scope of one’s imagination. It adds new sight to the eyes and new wisdom to the mind. Reading loads the mind with new software. The individual who reads well has at his command a means for widening his mental horizons and multiplying his opportunities for success. Reading is a vital factor affecting intellectual and emotional growth. Sir Richard Steele has logically quoted, “Reading is to mind what exercise is to body”.
Reading helps us understand the whole universe. It helps know about different people and places, cultures and traditions, and meet the famous; prophets and angels, saints and sinners, poets and artists, kings and queens, scientists and astronomers, politicians and social reformers, and writers and masters of the world without having any physical contacts with them. It pleasantly entertains in all days, ages, weather, and fortunes.
Reading habit is the prominent gateway to the knowledge room. It is the heart of self-education and lifelong learning. It is a continuous and never-ending learning process. In the modern competitive age, reading is the cornerstone for success in all academic disciplines. A good reading habit is a healthy addiction; once this powerful habit is mastered, it improves vocabulary, analytical skills, concentration power, and deciphering new words and thereby helps a person in academic and competitive achievements. Insofar schooling is concerned, reading is the most single study tool. Next to the teacher, the reading is usually the principal educating agency contributing to the pupil’s success.
In the modern knowledge-based society, knowledge is power absorbed by reading. It is well said, “The nation who reads is a nation who leads”. There is no doubt that a reading society is a leading society. In recent decades, efforts have been made worldwide to promote the literacy rate. However, acquiring literacy is a self-defeating exercise unless the newly literate are encouraged to continue reading to keep the existing knowledge alive and expand it to further horizons. If the literates stop updating their knowledge, they may gradually revert to illiteracy. Henry Ford rightly said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young”. There is a tremendous need for consistent and better reading by persons of all ages. Great poets, authors, philosophers, scientists, politicians, etc., are usually avid readers. One must read a great deal in all professions to keep pace with the new developments. The best scientists, administrators, teachers, lawyers, engineers and doctors demonstrate the value of reading in their lives. No professional can be successful unless he keeps himself up-to-date. Reading keeps a person knowledgeably alive.
Reading is essential not only for individuals but it also has great social and political significance. Political leaders are well aware of the fact that a country’s national indexes of sustainable development are closely related to its level of reading literacy. Responsible politicians prefer literate citizens who can read the information thoroughly and are not swayed by Television manipulation and propagandist slogans. Law enforcement bodies know that the majority of the prison population isilliterate. Social workers witness that adult illiterates are the major shareholders of the unemployed lot. Reading is also essential for international understanding and world brotherhood. It helps understand and appreciate the joint achievements of the global family. It empowers us to distinguish between ignorance and knowledge, irrationality and wisdom.
Reading has a long and distinguished track record for establishing positive and lasting benefits to humanity. It gives a unifying and civilizing force tending to unite social groups by disseminatingshared experiences, knowledge and wisdom. Those who read daily are knowledgeably healthy, those who read very often are alive, those who read rarely are in ventilation, and those who stopped reading are intellectually dead.
(Author is University Librarian at Islamic University of Science and Technology, Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir, India. Email: [email protected])
