Childeren Reading into Higher Things

I think that everyone will agree that in today's modern society of games, TV, and music, reading is a dying hobby with young people. One Christmas I bought my little brother 'The Far Away Tree' by Enid Blyton, a book that I had read as a child when he was doing well with his reading in school. I thought I was giving him a dream, an adventure but all I gave him was extra work. He would have much preferred a game over a book and I'm pretty sure he's not alone in this respect. The idea of books becoming more and more irrelevant is such a sad thing. England, or any country for that matter, would not be the same without its literature to make their culture richer. So here is my agenda: I want to encourage more young people, to encourage younger people to read. Ideas are a flame; they grow into a large light source.

Reading has, for me, opened up so many doors. I began to chain read in my early teens. At that point, I was in the bottom sets for everything in high school. The more I read, the more I wanted to learn, and the more I could learn. Slowly but surely I climbed to the highest sets. Now I'm studying Literature at University and so happy for it.

It would be unfair and wrong to say that people that don't read are stupid with no future. Plenty of people do very well without such a hobby. But there is no arguing with the knowledge that those who read books for pleasure will develop better spelling, grammar, and thinking skills. There are some children who still struggle to read in high school because they simply don't read enough and they were not encouraged enough by parents and teachers. It's a shocking fact, I think, and one that I still find hard to comprehend. In today's society where education is free to all, why should children not be able to read properly, or write or calculate? The Victorian age, where there were segregations in classes and the working class was only destined for labor, is over. You can be whatever you want to be with work and effort.

There are things that anyone can do to make a difference, obvious things and some less obvious things. Here are my suggestions:

• Tell others what they are missing out on. If your little siblings can see you having fun reading books and you persuade them to do the same, they just might listen to you. Don't order them to read: telling your little siblings what to do groundlessly will just wind them up.
• Read with them. No kid wants to read really, so spending time together with their big sister or brother (or older friend) might make it a little more fun for them.
• Set up a reading group in school. The school I went to had a system where the children from older year groups read with the year sevens who couldn't read as well as the others. Also, this kind of thing looks really good to Colleges and Universities because it shows initiative and that you are willing to do extra work. 
• Don't just read Children and Teen Fiction Novels. This suggestion is for you as well as others; a lot of younger people just read fantasy and supernatural. Although I'll admit that I love to curl up with a book that takes me to magical and strange worlds, reading non-fiction or more serious fictional works really help to broaden your understanding of the world you live in. Again, if you can say that you've read (for example) Robert Lewis Stevenson's 'The strange case of Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' on your applications and how it reflected social concerns during the 19th century Colleges and Universities will be more likely to accept you, especially if you're going for a course like literature or creative writing. 
• Blog it! Just like me, write a passionate plea to your readers telling them to spread the word. You are going to be able to reach different people than I will so it will turn into as an ongoing ripple pushing others to do better.

The written word is a powerful thing: it is a voice of the past that will continue to resonate far into the future, a voice that reaches people and changes the way they think, a voice that speaks for the voiceless. If people don't read what others have written, the ideas that they tried to project dies along with the author.