Introduction
Whichever key stage your child is in, reading is the key skill to ensure success in their journey to master English language and literature.
Reading allows us to take in new worlds and new adventures through the pages of a book. It enables children access to the thoughts and experiences of diverse characters that they may not encounter in their day-to-day life, building empathy where there could be indifference. Encountering settings that are far removed from everyday experience – a city, a country, another world – carries its own unique thrill and allows children to learn about vistas of experience that would not normally be open to them. It is an unparalleled experience – every child will interpret the same events slightly differently based on their varying viewpoints and so it is a way of gaining alternative perspectives on a story. Their social and emotional development is enhanced with a good book.
But an absorbing story that broadens horizons is not the only benefit. Regular reading ensures that literacy skills are embedded in the subconscious mind with minimal effort.
Wide-ranging vocabulary
By reading different genres and texts, children are exposed to an extensive range of words that they may not have come across before. This helps them improve their understanding of the story and leads to higher order skills such as inference – learning to read between the lines, what is implied rather than directly stated. These kinds of skills are very important for the analysis that comes in especially navigating GCSE language and literature and all types of comprehension.
Absorbing grammar and punctuation
Children are subconsciously being exposed to a wide range of grammatical patterns and sentence structures, which will become embedded knowledge, the more widely they read. Seeing a comma or colon laid out in a narrative helps them to master the often tricky rules in explicit teaching and fuels their journey in becoming capable writers.
Better focus and concentration
In these days of social media and other types of digital access, where things are instant and fast-moving, reading builds concentration spans. Giving sustained attention to one task for a period of time provides children core skills of consistency and momentum that will help them in the whole of their academic life. This will come in handy when they are required to read texts from the 18th and 19th centuries with often unfamiliar language and of course Shakespeare, where the texts carry different form and structures.
Enhanced cognitive skills
Studies show that reading for pleasure is more important for children’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic status. Language is the foundation for all learning and is required not just in English studies but History, Geography and other subjects. Developing speed and fluency in understanding, wider comprehension skills and core critical thinking skills will help them navigate a broad range of different topic areas.
During tuition sessions, I encourage students to develop close reading skills. Building a love of reading is the foundation for academic success, however, analysing a passage in-depth in order to understand the writing techniques which make it an effective piece of prose or poetry is also an essential skill. Not only will students pick up the general meaning of a text and be able to summarise the main points, they will be taught to successfully identify writing techniques and understand how the author uses it to transmit an idea, feeling or key message to the reader. They can then form an argument around the effectiveness of these techniques and its effect on the reader, skills which particularly come in handy around GCSE. This technique improves critical thinking skills and analysis, gives more insight into literary devices, enhances understanding of vocabulary (why has the author used this word or phrase rather a synonym?) and helps us to infer and find hidden meanings.
It deepens appreciation for language and literature.
