Reading matters!

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I love reading. Maybe you love reading, maybe you don't. But have you ever stopped to consider how important reading is?
   Reading does matter. Studies show that children who are read to at a young age will  have a love of reading later in life. Three in five inmates in U.S. prisons are illiterate, and 44 million adults in the U.S. can't read well enough to read a simple story to a child. If only they'd been read to when they were younger! My mom has always encouraged me to have a love of reading, and she taught me to read at a young age. But what about children whose parents can't read very well or don't know English? Reading can influence your future career, too. Approximately 50 percent of the nation's unemployed youth ages 16-21 are nearly or completely illiterate, with virtually no prospects of obtaining good jobs.
It's important to read to young children, too. You may think reading to a baby or toddler is boring or ludicrous, but.....

Children who have not developed some basic literacy skills by the time they enter school are 3 - 4 times more likely to drop out in later years.  Forty-four percent of American 4th grade students cannot read fluently, even when they read grade-level stories aloud under supportive testing conditions. You can help with this by reading to your younger siblings(or your kids, if you're an adult reading this post.) However, you also need to read, too! Studies of reading habits of students has shown that even just 15 minutes a day of independent reading can expose you to more than a million words of text in a year. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and read!! What you read is almost as important as if you read, however. Historical fiction is fun and educational, as are nonfiction books. Books like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys are exciting and have lots of interesting vocabulary words. Fantasy and Sci-fi books are alright once in a while, but constantly reading them doesn't really help your mind. If you like those kind of books, however, just look for ones with challenging words or that are on grade level. Here's a list of good reads I've blogged on: Freedom's Crossing -historical fiction Beware, Princess Elizabeth-historical fiction Hitty, her first hundred years-historical fiction Gail Carson Levine's books fantasy The Hidden Gold-historical fiction/mystery The Invention of Hugo Cabret-historical fiction/mystery Blue Jasmine-modern times/social issues Soul Surfer-modern times/social issues And many more! Just click the label "books" (at the top of my blog)and scroll through!