Reading to exercise the mind!

by Abigail Knowles Wolfe (BPRW)

Why is it that nobody reads anymore? Television, DVR, DVDs, video games and the Internet have given Americans too many options for entertainment yet are we letting ourselves and our children down in terms of quality education by neglecting the written word? A recent Associated Press (AP) – Ipsos Poll released Tuesday, August 14th stated that one in four American adults neglected to read even one book last year! Of those readers polled women and the senior citizens were the most ardent readers, reading religious books and popular fiction more than anything else.

Americans have a strong literary history tracing back to various parts of the globe. African American authors such as Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker make up only a few of the hundreds of world renowned writers producing great works over the past century. Yet, the same AP-Ipsos Poll found that nearly a third of men and a fourth of women hadn’t read a single book last year. This group tends to be less educated and lower income from the minority population and less religious than their reading counterparts.

The National Urban League Education & Youth Division has formed valuable reading initiatives specifically targeting African American and Latino populations whose national reading scores tend to be lower than their Anglo and Asian counterparts in school. Read & Rise Magazine is a free publication provided by the National Urban League in collaboration with Scholastic Inc. intended to help parents instill a love of reading in their grade school age children. The Read & Rise Guide also exists to give parents age-appropriate advice on how to help their young children develop this skill.

We all know that children learn most from parent’s positive example! Actions do speak louder than words. Parents who read a great deal themselves and who are constantly interested in learning more about the world around them will inspire their children to be great students in school and avid participators in the world at large. Reading is a life skill to be honed. Children who learn to love reading early on are better students and professionals and will carry this aptitude on with them for the rest of their lives.