The Benefits of Reading by Rachel Raffino

How Reading Benefits the Mind and Body

In Mrs. Kopp’s 10th grade honors English class, a year long assignment was given to us on the first day of school. This assignment was to simply read. Now many of us huffed and puffed, and pushed it to the back of our minds, and the bottom of our busy teen schedules. But what my classmates aren’t aware of, is that this assignment isn’t meant to torture us (believe it or not). After conducting research on the benefits of reading, the data I found was intriguing, and may encourage you to pick up a book more often.

A recent study from Rush University showed that adults who read regularly are two and a half times less likely to develop Alzheimer's. Reading is proven to actually exercise your brain like working out does, and it keeps your mind young. In addition, according to a Scholastic report, researchers believe that we learn five to fifteen percent of the words we read in everyday life. Another interesting study from York University shows that reading about the real or fictional lives of characters, allows us to understand other peoples situations better.

A webpage called Dosomething.org provided many interesting facts. One stated, "2/3 of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Over 70% of America’s inmates cannot read above a 4th grade level." The next fact fascinated me, due to the fact that Mrs. Kopp told me that kids are most likely in honors English because they had once loved to read. She said that students had lost the time to sit down and read, and that this assignment was to encourage us to read more often. On Dosomething.org, they stated, "53% of 4th graders admitted to reading recreationally “almost every day,” while only 20% of 8th graders could say the same." This proves that the older people get, the less they read, as Mrs. Kopp concluded. And the final, and most upsetting fact to think about says, "1 in 4 children in America grow up without learning how to read."

As the famous Dr. Seuss once wrote, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” This quote, though it is from a children's story, does apply to real life. Linked here is a video made by PBS, explaining how reading to young children can help them do better in school, and help them develop social and literary skills early on.

Based on the research done, I concluded that reading does not just provide us with entertainment, but it fills our brains with knowledge and benefits us in our school work and everyday lives.