How does reading 20 minutes a day is going to help an average person? And which book shall he/she read? Does he/she need to study school books or novels or hard vocabulary books? Is it really necessary to read books?
Since our childhood, we are constantly told to read every day, by our parents as well as teachers, and rightly so, because it makes us intelligent and smart. We have seen examples in our class. One who reads most of the time in an effective manner scores top in the exams.
Reading has many benefits and making it a regular habit is one of the difficult tasks yet most rewarding not just in exams rather assists us in all aspects of life. Studies show that reading minimum 20 minutes a day is a great task when compared with those who don’t read every day or nothing at all.
Most of the readers must still be wondering, how will 20 minutes of reading a book helps. I must say, looking at the benefits, every one of you will be making up your mind to develop this valuable habit.
Why bother reading at all?
Non-readers can relate to this question, as to why should they even bother to read. The ultimate motive is to make our language strong, fluent, skillful, and expanding vocabulary which can be helped by watching videos, movies, TV series, etc.
And, here everyone’s perspective goes wrong, Reading isn’t just to study or learn new words, new skills, etc. It’s much more than that.
Reading has countless benefits and each of that can be retrieved by just reading every day for even a small period of time.
Reading once in a while is okay for most but every day seems quite an uphill task and due to this reason, it’s not considered everyone’s cup of tea.
But, as Colin Powell said,
“A dream does not become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work“.
Of course, there are so many pleasant things to do such as playing games, watching TV, etc. than reading a book for hours and this could be due to the fact that we live in a community of Non-readers or we don’t live in a culture where reading is promoted.
This could be due to the unawareness of advantages of reading or mere negligence by the people.
I being an avid reader must remind you that reading affects our body internally and externally in a positive manner and will help us achieve success, only if we open our minds to grab every ounce of knowledge within us.
How much should a person read in a day?
The first question arises here is should we read every day? What if I have a cheat day and skip? What if I take 2 day break in a week/month?
To answer this, I would like to ask you a question. Would you be willing to skip breakfast any day in a week? Are you willing to take a day’s break from the food?
The answer would be ‘No‘ of course. Because we can’t compromise with our health(unless we are on a diet).
Ask yourself, why are you willing to give up your precious time for some worthless errand. We must hold our senses together and find some time for reading as well whether on phone or paperback or a newspaper or a magazine.
Every aspiring reader must find a way to read a minimum of 20 minutes every day.
Reading 20 minutes a day. Why?
You must be wondering why we must read 20 minutes and not longer, because habits do take time to develop.
You will be pleased to know that reading just 20 minutes a day has proven to be super beneficial by a research for children as well as adults.
A study by Nagy and Herman in 1987 proved some facts about reading which are:
- If a person reads 1 minute a day, he/she will have read a total of 3 hours in a year which accumulates to around 8,000 words per year.
- If a person reads 5 minutes a day, he/she will have read a total of 15 hours in a year which accumulates to around 2,82,000 words per year.
- If a person reads 20 minutes a day, he/she will have read a total of 60 hours in a year which accumulates to around 1.8 million words per year.
These 1.8 million words prove to be the difference. The habit of reading not only just improves your English but also helps your comprehension in all subjects from Maths to Science to History also improving your analytical and critical thinking skills.
It doesn’t matter what a person reads, be it sci-fi, or history, or motivational, or business, or even a newspaper, the exposure to various fields and different words increases your vocabulary, thinking, creativity, memory, and countless more.
How much books we must read in a year/month?
It depends from person to person how much they can read. Completing books is not some task you need to get off your back. It should be your routine like marijuana is to a junkie.
Reading more books isn’t an accomplishment you must show off to others rather the motive should be to gain as much as possible from a book or a newspaper or a journal.
Read as many books as you wish to. Don’t make a target just read them to entertain yourself and understand what the author is trying to deliver. Don’t rush in reading and be like, “When will this book end?“.
This kind of attitude leaves to nowhere. Just take whatever you like and start reading with easy ones.
Reaping rewards from books is a long-term process as you will see positive changes among yourself day-by-day. No one is ever perfect and therefore, even the most successful people in the world still read at their old age. The famous among them is Warren Buffet.
If you start reading even one book per week, that would be great which means you cover, 52 books in a year which is more than what Steve Jobs read (50).
But let’s say you start and read 2 books per week, even then you have read 26 in a year or if you read 20 books a year, it would be awesome, unless you didn’t read them carefully.
A research in America concluded that an average person reads 12 books per year, however, it also depends how fast a reader you are and how long book you choose.
To decode, who reads how many books, lenstore.co.uk came up with the idea of testing the individual’s reading skills and will tell you how much you can read. You must visit this site to test your reading skills.
How reading 20 minutes a day impacts children and adults?
As per the above data, if a children starts reading in the early days, he would have read 1.8 million words every year accumulating to more than 7 million words by the age of 10 which is a compelling statistic.
He would have read more than anyone and could be one of the brightest and intelligent students among 90% of his fellows which is great news for any parent.
Whereas, an adult who just starts reading 20 minutes every day will learn unfamiliar words, different styles of sentences, increase his reading skills, etc. which he wouldn’t achieve without reading.
Reading 20 minutes would lead an adult to less words than children due to their decreased curiosity towards grabbing new words as opposed to children.
There are several other benefits a children and an adult could posses with 20 minutes of reading every single day.
Benefits of reading 20 minutes a day
1. Language Development
Reading loudly every day for 20 minutes will help a child to read properly. learn new words, and find a connection between reading and writing.
Whereas, an adult will learn new words, build his vocabulary further, learn writing skills, and will improve on his spoken English when reads loudly.
2. Brain development
Reading is like an exercise for the brain. While reading, new circuits and connections builds inside the brain which will become more complex further.
One study involved conducting brain scans on the brain over several days as the participants read a novel. As the storyline, became tenser, the brain scans showed more and more brain areas with activity.
They conducted the study for several more days which revealed that even when the novel was completed, the brain activity increased in connectivity.
3. Improves Performance
For a child, reading improves their academic performance. As proved in the study above by Nagy and Herman, a child reading 1 minute a day is below average scoring 10 percentile in exams, while reading 5 minutes a day will get him/her to 50 percentile. However, a student reading 20 minutes will come in 90 percentile in the class and will be doing better than 90%of his/her peers.
For an adult, reading helps them in improving their way of life. It will help them in the job, business, market, understanding people, make him/her positive in further aspects of life to lead towards success.
4. Entertainment
Reading is entertainment for both children and adults. They will enjoy it much more than watching a movie. Although, the visual effects are appealing yet the fun of creating those images in our mind while reading is much more.
Moreover, the suspense and thrill are high while reading as compared to movies.
5. Improves Physical health
Reading helps as a stress buster for both children and adults. Though stress is a physical and mental reaction to the experiences of a person, it is okay for short term. Long-term stress can lead to Anxiety, Insomnia, Headache, etc.
Doctors have recommended reading as a routine before bedtime because it tends to reduce stress and promotes sleep. Reading every day can also help in improving your sleep.
6. Enhances creativity & Imagination
Reading tends children and adults to make a movie in their minds and explore the imagination of the author. Reading helps us to match our imagination with the author and makes us more creative inducing ideas in our mind. Be it fiction novels or non-fiction, every novel has the power to enhance our imagination to the ends of the world.
7. Strengthens relationships
Reading increases the conversational skills of every child and adult. Reading literature allows students to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They gain a perspective of what the characters in the book are experiencing and builds soft skills.
These soft skills help in socializing and tighten the bond between people, whether it is between parent-child, Husband-wife, Teacher-student, or friends, etc.
Conclusion
Now, you know the rewards of reading which you can reap by just reading 20 minutes a day whether it is in academics, life, Business, Job, Personal life, etc.
So why not start reading today and make it a family habit of reading together every day. Just pick some books and start reading.
There is always something learn more!
