Winners’ Tip: Read More
Not everyone enjoys reading. For some, reading for an assignment seems a tiresome, boring, or even stressful, chore, and being asked to “read more” doesn’t at all sound worthwhile.
But reading is one of the most useful skills you can have, and being a competent reader can help you succeed in many arenas in life. Fortunately, it’s easy to improve your reading abilities, because all you have to do is read more, and then some more again, and soon you’ll see the benefits of reading.
Here’s why you should take the trouble to read more than just what is required at school.
Win At School
If you’re in middle school or high school, you’re probably already well aware of the amount of reading you have to do for school. And if you’re not into reading, maybe you’ve been scraping by with the bare minimum of reading so far, or opting for SparkNotes from time to time (we’ve all done it!).
Trust us, reading more will help you out and here’s some data to prove it! Increasing the amount of reading you do can also work wonders for your reading comprehension, whether it’s literature or a social studies text or a science article. Reading more often can quickly help you read faster, improve your vocabulary and build critical thinking skills, which can cut down the amount of time you spend on homework each night.
Win At College
While reading assignments might be a common feature of your high school experience, college is a time where reading is really taken to the next level. The amount of reading you’ll likely have to do simply to keep up with your classes escalates dramatically – even if you’re not a liberal arts major. The things you’ll be reading about can be more complex than you’re used to, and you might be reading about things you’ve never even heard of.
College readings can take you a bit more time to digest and fully understand, so reading more often can help you develop your ability to process lots of information. Reading a lot also helps you develop your writing skills, which will almost inevitably come in handy as you’re writing your college papers. By practicing your reading, you’re setting yourself up for success in higher education and beyond.
Win At Your Job
As we already mentioned, reading more often can improve greatly improve your critical thinking skills, which will be definitely be an asset in any career you end up choosing. In addition, the link between more reading and better writing isn’t just useful for college papers; writing is an integral part of almost any job. Reading can help you clearly and concisely convey your thoughts in writing, a soft skill with immense importance in the professional world. Even engineers have to write professional emails, right?
And, to make it even more worthwhile, there are many excellent jobs that reward people with good reading skills, so if you read more, you’re also increasing your job opportunities!
Win At Life
In general, reading exposes you to new ideas and broadens your horizons. By increasing the amount of reading material that you consume, whether it is fiction or nonfiction, you’ll be exposed to a variety of viewpoints surrounding the same issue, which can help you develop your own informed opinions – not just blindly accept what you read or hear. Equally, this kind of exposure can help you develop new interests, or even allow you to take a deeper dive into the things you already know you’re interested in. Hone your ability to search for new information, or even ask others for their reading lists to keep you engaged and interested.
Reading has also been shown to make you a better person in many different ways, and a smarter one too. All of this will help you win not only at school and work, but also at life – and who wouldn’t want that?
Our recommendation is that you start by carving out some time every day to do a little extra reading. Pick books that will interest you (here are some ideas to get started), and soon you’ll find yourself wanting to read more. Enjoy!