Reading Makes A Better Reader: Persuasive Essay
At a young age, possibly in our elementary years, we are told constantly to read for a certain number of hours every day to help us in school. The theory that I’m trying to cover here is that reading more could help further the writing skills of a student, to help build vocabulary and structure in class. Most of us never really believed what our teachers were saying, because reading a book was just an extra assignment along with homework, while the desire of doing other activities would be looming over our heads. But through the years, we’d be sitting in class looking around at our peers and possibly noticing the effect reading outside of school has done. The “smart” kids would be envied by the rest of their peers when they were able to answer the more “difficult” questions that the teachers would ask, and no one would answer. The rest would joke, saying it wasn’t fair that they weren’t born “smart” enough like their top peers. The reality is that those top students took the time to read books that they weren’t forced to read and probably grew fond of the different stories and fueled their fire to continue reading to obtain as much information or imaginative thoughts that the texts were able to give them.
I remember in class, how we would all laugh and joke with each other about how everyone was born with their set IQ’s and how funny, but belittling it was, to laugh at the more “slow” students who didn’t understand something or were full of themselves to pay attention. The teacher possibly heard and then told us that it wasn’t true, that we’re not born dumb or smart, that we have to read and practice to gain information, that if we wanted the title of beings one of the “smart” kids we had to earn it. Couple of days later I had noticed the divide within my peers, and I understood why my classmates thought that the “smart” classmates were born with their set IQ’s, because they would all look stereotypical and I was in awe of actually understanding, but I didn’t feed into that thought because of what my teacher had told us not so long ago. They then pushed us further to reading more when we had any spare time, maybe at least an hour or so at home. I didn’t get into reading until later on in my elementary years, when my friends would be reading or asking to go to the library because they finished reading the book they already had after finishing their work, so fast may I add. So, I pushed myself to read because I felt like I was being left behind by my friends, and it took time for me to get into lengthier and plot-based books, starting with the simple chapter books. I got into reading a bit more and more and actually started really liking some of the characters or certain scenes and being able to talk to certain friends about what I liked and discussing our opinions on said books.
The reason we should be reading is that it can help with comprehending and imagining scenarios, as well as understanding messages that the writers purposely hide within the sentences. Being able to have these skills help in the real-world, and to dive deeper into the more complex readings in the English subject. Having these specific students gain skills to dive deeper into the understanding of these complex meanings. In my experience, and possibly others, I had a hard time in my senior English class. I thought I had it down but whenever we had to read and figure out the meanings of poems or other texts on our own without the help of my teacher, I would have an internal panic. I could never connect words and their possible meanings to follow up on something that was being taught and whenever I did end with a meaning, I thought I understood from the text, I was thrown into a loop when my teacher asked my classmates what they thought and what the actual meaning actually was. As a class we would then work out the meanings of each sentence and I was then just left flabbergasted at the fact that I was super way off from the actual meaning of the text given. I was never able to decipher the words and had an even tougher time trying to connect everything together like my other classmates. These assignments just threw me off all the time, and I had the thought, “If I’m having trouble with this then others probably have it worse”, and with this thought just reflected how others possibly felt and why it would just put them off reading even more. It’s just off-putting because then these students would then be going into college, where it is really necessary to read complex and tough texts, with no experience to read for long periods of time and understand complex ideas for assignments/classes.
Something that would be stuck with me forever would be the importance of summer reading homework, having two months to read a number of books, and then writing and answering questions about what we had read. I understand thoroughly why they put us to read especially for the “rigor” my middle school/high school had, but it put me off reading for a good amount of time. Of course I soon started to love some of the reading assigned to us, but others were just boring and nothing really stuck and knowing people my age going to the same school either didn’t do it or they just couldn’t because the forced reading didn’t go with what they liked. Towards the end of the summer or beginning of the school year the assignment would be done for the grade and not because the reading(s) were life changing. Although, those who did read the assigned readings and understood or just remembered what happened would later thank their past selves because essays in high school would as for comparisons to other books and such would then be able to write about the books that was read years ago.
You can tell that some people go really in depth and create something in their own writings, they were able to pick up some creativity from the structures and metaphors that they read in books. People in my grade that I knew were able to have a certain flow within their writings and use many devices without them being forced down our throats. They were able to comprehend and later do something similar with an ease, I envied this and tried to do the same when it came to writing essays independently. The pressure was built up, to write something good with the criteria that the teachers wanted to earn the best grade possible to really have good marks for college. To read more and write more because that’s what we would do for our college years and there was no stopping it. We were pressured to gain as many writing skills as possible to be able to write something that the teachers would deem as “good”.
Reading was a skill is necessary for high school as it is always said. Techniques can be picked up from reading fiction and non-fiction in so that many things can be picked up from the different readings. As stated by Toalson, ranging from structure to characterization, to really be able to help in writing habits. To have the skill to be able to point them out or to even use them in our own writing in ways that not everyone can do all the time. Readers are able to comprehend more what techniques have been used and how they were used, being able to point them out for essays or just point them out in general for their own writing abilities. These techniques pointed out can be beneficial and very helpful for the students to have when writing on their own can be made easier and more fluid when trying to go over anything in specific.
Perusing extends your association with humankind through reality, and whatever subject you are keen on is likely something somebody has expounded on. Sentiments of being separated from everyone else in a threatening universe increment a feeling of uselessness which makes the demonstration of composing significantly more troublesome than it must be. Perusing reliably opens you up to the plenty of conclusions, styles, feelings, and choices which can help fortify your association with yourself and everyone around you, stated in Ultius. Along these lines, how about we delve into the principle reasons why perusing is significant with regards to improving your composing aptitudes. On the off chance that you are one of the numerous individuals who experiences a temporarily uncooperative mind, you realize the most noticeably awful activity is basically gaze at the clear screen sitting tight for motivation to mysteriously show up. Interruption is regularly a powerful method to deceive your cerebrum out of focusing on the current issue. A mental obstacle is mental, and dependent on the hallucination of hairsplitting. Be that as it may, when you read what others have composed, you can see that it is the writer's certainty and effortlessness that makes the work stick out, and not hairsplitting.
The effect of not reading can negatively impact a student, they won’t or can’t be able to comprehend or gain the skills necessary to fully understand class work and writing of the future. Pushing the idea of reading away isn’t the best idea for students, the need to read to later on help to write essays is so important, especially in university. Research and essays need constant readings of textbooks or article and other information that can be used and even then, reading from a younger age can really help with structure as earlier said. It’s one thing to read sentences and try to write something similar but it’s something else to actually understand the reading and its meaning and writing something to explain that meaning found. These students who don’t read are then left behind while their fellow classmates advance further in their studies, furthering their skills in reading and writing and just being able to go on in their classes without much struggle. Non-readers hurt themselves because they don’t build onto the skills that readers are gaining and have a much harder time studying and doing their, possibly, complex or important homework for their university classes. We have been told many times from our high school teachers that writing, and reading is something important and something we can’t escape in our college/university years because of the work and research we would have to be doing.
I stand by the theory I have researched and talked about, the necessity to have this skill is high. It is nothing for students to push aside, not something to come back later in life because it can just get difficult in life. In college there is no time to learn to read or catch up with the levels of reading needed to be at the level others are at. Reading is a skill that has to be practiced time and time again to gain many skills needed for the future.
