Many parents think the right type of education, routined schedule, and all other common aspects are the keys to academic success but in the rush of focusing on these common subjects, they forget about the most important and basic concept of education and that is reading.
For an ideal student, reading should not only be a part of academic success but it should become his habit as well. Only then reading can start offering benefits. To make things clear, we will walk you through all that you need to know about reading and academic success through this blog post.
The long list of benefits offered by reading
According to the American Library Association, there is a strong connection between the reading habit of students and their academic success. Following are some of the most common findings related to reading and student performance.
Students who make a habit of reading independently always become better readers and they are able to score higher in almost all the subjects. In addition to this, such students have better content knowledge than those students who don’t read independently.
If there is an elementary aged student and if he or she has a habit of reading outside the school then there chances of scoring higher in reading achievement tests increases by many folds.
There is no need to spend two to three hours on independent reading as even a small amount of time spent on independent reading improves vocabulary power, spelling power and understanding of grammar. So, even participating in online reading activities can help a lot.
But the main thing here to focus is students should be able to participate in the reading process voluntarily not through force or instructions. This is the only way students can benefit from reading habits. The new age online reading activities can always help students in unraveling their hidden interest in reading.
What to do?
The best way to enlighten the spark of reading is to introduce kids to reading at an early age. It has been found that early exposure to reading is necessary as it build an expectation in the mind of the child that reading is an essential part of life.
So, even if your child is in kindergarten, preschool or early elementary school, you should introduce them to reading through story time at the library or you can make reading a part of the daily routine at home. This is the best method that parents can use to make their child exceptional readers.
But while introducing kids to reading, you should always be aware of the importance of independent reading and reading in addition to what the kids are exposed to during school time. Without independent reading, even 10 hours of reading won’t offer much benefit.
How educators can influence independent reading?
All the educators must be aware about the resistance to homework shown by students. So, instead of throwing up tons of homeworks that involves only writing, you can assign a daily homework of just 40 minutes of reading. It has been found that students are more interested in reading than just doing the regular homework.
The main focus of the educators while making reading a part of their student’s life is to make reading fun instead of something that is forced and is treated like a part of the academics. By doing so, educators will never have to deal with any type of resistance from students while giving reading based homeworks.
The average time every student should spend on reading varies. In some cases, even 15-20 minutes of reading is enough while in other cases, students might need 50-60 minutes of reading. But the one thing that educators should never be afraid of is always introducing students to new reading materials.
From articles to books, there are many reading materials that can be introduced by educators to the students. In addition to this, educators can even use the power online reading activities for making their students avid readers. By doing so, you can offer variety to the student while working on making reading an important part of their life.
Everyone knows the importance of academic success but only a handful of people are aware about the main aspects of academic success. By focusing on basic concepts of education like independent reading, your child can excel at academic performance and even you will feel satisfied with where your kid is moving towards in terms of education.
