The importance of reading

      Hello everyone! I hope this blog finds you well. 

  As you can guess from the photography above, I have decided to dedicate this post to books, particularly to the importance of reading, as it has been accompanying me during all of my life and especially during these dark days we are all going through. I decided to write about books, because yesterday I came accross one of the books that I read when I was only 9 years old, "The Big Friendly Giant" by Roald Dahl (Maybe you've watched the recent film). I was surprised to see its brown stains or the stains of time as I like to call them, as it made me realize how much the time has passed and it made me meet my 9 year old self. It might sound a little bit odd, but holding this book in my hands reminded me of my dreams, promises of the past. I met my friends of the story and myself there. And I realized, that just like the book that now has the brown spots, but whose characters remain unchanged, I have also grown older, but remained the same. 

The book isn't "pretty" in comparison to the new books I have, but it is wiser and helped me become this person I am today. 

But, why is reading important? If you are still paying attention, I want to share with you my reasons why we should read. 

First of all, reading makes us travel back or forward in time and space. Only by reading some simple sentences, like magic, our fantasy and imagination starts working and we can visualize what we are reading. We can see Wonderland, schools of Magic, Magicians, lions that talk. Maybe sometimes we'll be hurt by seeing the ugly truth of wars or even of the humankind. Sometimes we might go in adventures, dressed like Sherlock Holmes or Gabiel Allon, trying to solve mysteries.  But, by being taken in this journey, we will meet many characters by whom we'll learn many things. Some of them will become our friends, our guide; maybe we'll see in them pieces of ourselves or maybe we'll lose some pieces by adding theirs. Some others will make us realize that we shouldn't trust everyone, as the evil will keep existing. The good thing is that we can learn our lessons from these "evil characters" without being hurt in the real life. A simple example can be taken from "Othello", where Iago, pretending to be Othello's close friend, was just trying to ruin his life, and devises a plan to destroy him by making him believe that his wife is having an affair with his lieutenant, Michael Cassio. So, Othello allows jealousy to consume him, murders Desdemona, and then kills himself. What I mean by showing this example, is that we know that Othello made a fatal mistake by trusting Iago blindly, because his wife was innocent. In this way, reading improves our critical thinking. "We shouldn't trust everything or everyone without being provided facts". 

Secondly, reading opens new doors to experience other cultures, showing us new perspectives and lifestyles. I wouldn't know that one of the most fascinating discoveries of Chinese women’s educational history is "nu shu", a phonetically driven “secret” language written and spoken by the female population of the Hunan province if I hadn't read “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” by Lisa Lee. But I've also learned a lot about other cultures, such as the Afgan, African, European, American or the Jewish one. What I consider as the most fascinating encounter is reading about Albanian culture, especially when the author is a foreign and describes us as fierce and full of virtues, such as Lord Byron did in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage". It makes me reflect about the value and beauty of my own country and people, leading me to the conclusion that I love and I am proud of my roots. 

In addition, reading helps us increase emotional intelligence and develop empathy. We become what we read. Walking in the same shoes as our characters, makes the reader think like them, feel like them. I personally came across the saying "I've lived a thousand lives" some years ago and it felt so real, as I've lived the life of the little girl Sophie in the "BFG", of Harry Potter, of Lisel or "The book thief", of Hamlet, Ana Karenina, Raskolikov and a thousand's more. By being them, by living in so many different realities, facing different problems and feelings helped me become more compassionate towards people in my own reality. I've become more appreciative of who and what I have, as I've taken and keep taking advices from books. 

People think of reading as an isolated activity suitable only to introverts, but I think that us, as future teachers can use it in our future classes. We can suggest the class to read a particular book and discuss about it after a week. It may be a tiring process, but its benefits are endless. Reading (especially in a Second Language) can help students expand their vocabulary (by finding the meaning of new words in dictionaries or just by guessing). It also helps with spelling and writing. Being exposed to a huge amount of new words affects in choosing the right word when needed and by analysing or seeing many different writing styles, the students will find their own. I can add that reading is also connected to speaking as it is shown to improve both accuracy and fluency. There might also be students who love books and they will be easily motivated to participate in our classes. 

         To sum up, I think reading is a very crucial element in building someone's personality. 

        Afterall, it makes us live a thousand lives. What about you? How many lives have you                                         

                                                                                 lived?