It’s been a minute since I posted any type of intentional challenge to you, my friend. So, I thought it would be fitting to ease into the summer lull with a little “reading wake-up call” — a challenge of sorts.
It’s going to be a fun one though. One that will probably surprise you with its results when it’s all said and done. I think it’ll be eye-opening to say the least. It’s a challenge that will bring some undeniable clarity to just how important reading is to our everyday lives.
And, if this challenge proves its point of emphasizing reading’s prominence in daily living, then it would be appropriate to follow with this statement:
Mastering reading skills is something we should all strive for if we want to benefit in all the ways that reading can help elevate our lives in the most positive ways. Now, I’ll save this “mastering reading skills” for a topic of discussion that I pull together for future blog posts. But today, we’re going to do this little challenge (experiment, if you will) to really highlight just how fundamentally necessary reading is on the daily.
Let’s just face it —
You and I would be very hard-pressed to have a day in which NO READING would ever take place. Just think about it. Can you remember the last 24-hour day you had where you read nothing — ALL DAY? Well, I personally can’t think of one.
From the ingredient labels on your groceries. To the recipes you follow using those groceries. To the traffic signs on the street. To the words that flash across your tv or computer screens. To the emails you receive. To the mail that’s in your physical mailboxes. To the text messages you receive on your phones.
I mean . . . I could go on and on . . .
To the fiction and non-fiction books you read in your downtime. To the many textbooks that bring you knowledge about subjects in school and outside of school. To the searches you do on Google and YouTube and the many documents you read in hard copy or electronic copy throughout the day.
They all require reading skills to decode the words you see and how to apply them in life.
READING IS EVERYWHERE!!!
(I just took this highlighted passage from a video I created to talk about the Degrees of Maternity Tutoring Services that I started up this month.) And, that’s okay, because it’s my passage and I give myself permission to quote my stuff any old time. Hee. Hee.
But, I thought the words from the video were just perfect to lead into the challenge. When you really think about all the ways in which you use your reading skills throughout the day, there should be no doubt that children MUST BE equipped with the understanding that starting to develop this skill at a young age is necessary for life betterment. And honing your reading skills throughout your lifetime will only benefit you the more.
Reading is fundamental to life, growth, development, sustainment, survival, and all the things that allow us to thrive
So, here’s the challenge:
I want you to pick one day out of the week and carry around a small notebook to record every time you read something. You’re going to do this for a 24-hour period. Easy peasy. Well actually, easier written than done, because you might find it pretty challenging to remember to write down every instance in which you read in the waking hours of your day. I mean . . . there’s going to be a lot of writing going on on your part (even with the exclusion of hours spent sleeping). Just trust me. You’re going to surprise yourself with how many times you actually engage in reading activities.
So seriously, try it. Write down all of the reading occurrences you have in that 24-hour waking period of your choosing.
And if you want to be fancy with it, you can even include the amount of time you spent reading during each occurrence. Then, add up those amounts of time for the whole day and you’ll have an estimate of the amount of time you spent reading for the entire day.
Are you up for the challenge?
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