“How to inculcate reading habits among school children?”

In the yesteryears, reading only meant – books, newspapers and magazines. And in the modern era, reading means any form of written text – be it e-books, e-newspapers, e-magazines, e-mails, text messages etc.

What is this “e” that is being talked about?

With globalization, with modernization, with scientific and technological advancement comes “e” as a freebie. This “e” stands for “electronic”. Needless to say that with so much of technological advancement today, the electronic market is full of various electrical gadgets. Man from a social being has turned into a gizmo. Man no longer speaks or talks but he is expressing his views or voicing out his opinions through an electronic gadget called a ‘mobile’, ‘tablet’, ‘computer’ or a ‘laptop’.

The former greeting – “Hi! How are you?”, these days has turned into – “Hi! Hw r u?”  The shorter the sentence the better. The minimal words indicate the absence of feelings, emotions and sometimes also of ideas. Whereas, before the advent of such electronic gadgets and gizmos, one’s life was a little more organized. During the free time people used to read and they read quality stuff. By quality, I mean great works of great writers, poets, novelists. These literary people were icons and role models of the common man. Through their works they contributed in the upliftment of man’s knowledge in general and society as a whole. It’s a pain to see little school children spending hours and hours in front of T.V. or on the computer. They are not interested in studies as they know that they can access every information on the internet. They don’t want to read as they feel that it’s a sheer wastage of time. Instead they are sitting on their computers or mobile phones and playing games online.

Our grandparents and parents always insisted that “Books are a man’s best friend”. 

Alas, this does not hold any good in today’s present world. By saying that today’s generation is more prone to using the electronic media, I am not denying the fact that they are not sensible in deciding for themselves what to read. There are books and books available in the market. Thanks to the cut throat competition amongst the youngsters – the market is flooded with all sort of books. Now one has to decide what to read and what not to. This obviously is a great decision, however there is a pool of dull, drab and lazy lots who just by looking at books give up the idea of reading them.

Since reading has become such a tedious task these days, there is an alarming concern as to how to inculcate reading habits among school children.

Reading helps in improving mental health, removes narrow thinking, provides pleasure, keeps mind fresh broadens outlook, and helps cope with stress. All these healthy benefits of reading are losing their charm. Knowledge is wealth and we gain this wealth in the form of books. Books can be in any form – comics, magazines, books of poetry, religious books, novels, drama, books of wisdom – to name a few. Our grandparents were not literate, but they were educated enough to recite the shlokas from the great Gita, Ramayana or Mahabharata. They chanted verses in Sanskrit or Devnagiri – verses of Kalidas, Valmiki, they recited dohas of Kabir. Inspite of being illiterate, they were highly educated, they had great knowledge and high wisdom – because they knew what to read and how to read. They tried to instill the same habits of reading in us. They taught us the importance of reading. They brought us to the world of books showcasing their knowledge and wisdom of which they have earned from reading quality books. Today, we are reading what we want to read and that too on internet, in the form of blogs. We are running away from the actual paper book which is declining in number due to the low demand of our dear readers.

Every paper book has been replaced by an e-book. The language has been distorted. There is no appreciation of the writing style, the coherence of ideas. What one is concerned while reading is – saving of time and quick understanding of the content. Everybody is writing blogs these days. The youngsters are getting confused. They are not understanding the real worth of books. There is a great challenge.

Earlier, the revolution was to transform every book into an e-book and today, another revolution needs to be instigated, of transforming that e-book back to the paper book of good old times. We need to limit our access of electronics into our lives. We need to adjust our lifestyles such that we can afford to have some leisure time. Only then the leisure time would mean spending our time with our best friends (i.e. books). The school education system also plays a vital role in this process. Schools of today are busy assessing the students with their overall development. In this process they have overlooked the fact that the students are not getting enough time for themselves. The school students no longer spend their time with family or friends. All they complain of is – lack of time. If we cannot do anything with the prevalent education system; we can at least resolve to ourselves to make our school children at ease during their vacations. We can introduce them to a whole new array of books – some religious, some with historical events, some with funny and hilarious stories, some full of thrill, adventure and mystery, some with scientific knowledge, some with inventions and the variety of books goes on.

We need to ensure that we are not forcing the students to read; instead we are encouraging them with some good reading habits and we also need to make sure that reading does not become monotonous or boring, instead it should be fun and exciting. Once the students get on with the habit of reading, the they need to be taught the importance of good reading. The melancholy of the modern day man can only be overcome if we get to read books and share the knowledge amongst ourselves.

We will not only be valuing the worth of books but also we will be transforming ourselves into better citizens of the society.