The Benefits of Reading for Fun

An interesting article:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/benefits-reading-fun

"The Benefits of Reading for Fun: There’s a powerful academic impact, new research reveals, when students are voracious, voluntary readers."

"In a new study, Sandra Martin-Chang and her colleagues found significant differences between students who read for pleasure outside of class and those who primarily read books to satisfy school assignments. Not only was there a powerful link between reading for fun and stronger language skills, but students who disliked reading frequently attributed their negative outlook to experiences they had in classrooms."

“We found that often children’s experience in elementary school is far more positive, and then it drops in high school,” said Martin-Chang. While children in kindergarten and early elementary school tend to read storybooks as they develop their reading skills, by high school, the nature of reading changes as students are expected to read a steady diet of more challenging, information-rich texts. Somewhere during that transition, a love of reading seems to fade."

"In the study, 35 percent of students pinpointed a specific reason: They didn’t enjoy reading because “being asked to analyze books in high school made it less pleasurable.”

"We need to take reading for fun as seriously as we take academic reading, if we’re going to sustain voluntary reading through middle school and high school, and into adulthood."

Books. Books. Books.

 

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

This extraordinary novel is about 18 year old Victoria who grew up in the foster care symptom and had difficulties trusting anyone or forming any bonds. Bounced from home to home, she doesn't feel a connection anywhere.

Her one promising, but still failed, chance at a real home and family taught her about the Victorian Language of Flowers. Hazel means reconciliation. Daffodil means New Beginnings. Aloe means Grief and Moss means Maternal Love.

This language of flowers is the only way Victoria feels comfortable communicating and all she could communicate is her own mistrust and seclusion.

At 18, Victoria is emancipated and ages out of the foster care system and is left to her own devices, living in a park and planting her own garden, scavenging for food as needed. 

When Victoria meets a local florist, this woman recognizes the unique gift Victoria has with flowers and how they affect and relate to each customer. She offers Victoria her a job and helps her find a place to live.

One day, while browsing at the flower market, she comes across someone from her past. Grant offers her a chance to change her life. Much like one would try to feel a wild deer, Grant offers her friendship while maintaining the distance and solitude he knows that she requires, until his lengthy attempt at breaking into shell finally offers her the chance to reconcile with the few people that she always dearly wanted to be her family.

A remarkable story, I highly recommend!

I love this story about good people ... and books.

A bookshop owner in Southampton, England asked for help to move his inventory due to high rent and wants to move the books to the new location. The person is surprised by the presence of more than 250 young, elderly and special needs people who offered help. They form a human chain where they take thousands of books and transfer them hand in hand from the old place to the new place at a distance of 500 feet. The job was done in just an hour.

 

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

This book has been on my "to read" list for many years. The author lived in my home town and was a Professor at Ohio University, just like my parents, so it was often suggested  reading for my high school English class reading assignments, but somehow I only just got to it. So glad I finally did!

This is the story of Charlie, a 32 year old developmentally disabled man with a very low IQ. This is also the story of Algernon, a lab mouse who has undergone a medical procedure in order to increase his intelligence.

Charlie is offered the opportunity to undergo the same procedure that was given to Algernon, and be the first human to vastly advance his intelligence and capabilities through this experiment.

The story is written in "progress reports" or journal entries that follow Charlie from the beginning of this experiment and follow the changes that he undergoes after his surgery.

Charlie begins as a man with childlike intelligence and grows to be a genius, even surpassing the capabilities of the scientists, doctors and brain surgeons who he works with daily during the experiment. He enjoys learning new things and his ability to do so is incredibly vast.

However, he finds that life isn't magically perfect now that he is "smart". He finds it difficult to make and maintain friendships, and develops romantic feelings that he doesn't understand or know how to respond to. He begins to have memories from his childhood that he had all but forgotten, many of which were not so pleasant. His social abilities have not increased with his intelligence. He had always believed that if he could just be "smart" life would be easy and happy, but finds that this isn't the case.

When Algernon, whom Charlie has become attached to and studies, starts to show a decline in the benefits from the experiment, and his behavior darkens, Charlie is fearful for his own future and and what will happen if and when he will also loose his abilities that were boosted from the surgery and be returned to his original disabled mental state.

An incredibly insightful novel, I highly recommend this one!

Reading can save a life!

Reading - for mental health and achieving "Flow".

An interesting New York Times article with some applications to reading fiction.

"There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing" by Adam Grant,

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html?fbclid=IwAR2wtneHGHmPJlD8k00wAOqKoYz5AL7BpDMC6Ep5o7NPznncAhfYpqSxyXM

Mr. Grant writes that over the course of the pandemic, 'anguish has turned to languish' - many people report difficulty with concentrating, feeling little excitement about things, and 'muddling' through their day: in other words, feeling 'blah'. Many of us are neither thriving nor depressed; we are languishing.

However, the good news for readers of fiction? "A concept called “flow” may be an antidote to languishing. "Flow is the state of absorption where your sense of time, place and self melts away." That, to me, is precisely what reading fiction is/does.

It states that the ability to achieve flow is a better predictor of mental wellbeing than both mindfulness and optimism!

To better achieve flow - it recommends cutting back on distractions and multi-tasking and create "space and time to immerse yourself by carving out daily time to focus on a challenge that matters to you — an interesting project, a worthwhile goal, a meaningful conversation" - OR... a good book!

Books. Books. Books.