The Importance Of Leisure Reading

The interest to read among the public is declining quickly. The amount of time spends to read is getting lesser. This trend is worrying as reading is important in one’s life. The group that is affected the most is its youngest readers, primary school students. The main factor for such decline is due to the existence of electronic media such as internet, portable digital devices and video games (National Endowment for Arts, 2004). McKool (2007) had stated that there is a strong correlation between the success of a student in a school with the amount of time he/she spends reading outside the school. When one reads more, he or she would increase her vocabulary, become more fluent in speaking, have better comprehension and generally develop intellectual.

The readings that are done by the readers are not assigned by the school or by the teacher. Because leisure reading is not forced, and is done willingly by the students outside of classroom settings, leisure reading helps to enhance students’ attitudes and their interest to read as well as their motivation to do so. Readers who constantly do leisure reading have higher self-esteem as they are able to understand the reading material that they read. Typically, they pick easier reading material such as magazines or comic as opposed to harder, assigned reading materials at school. By selecting their own choices in books for leisure reading, readers enjoy their schooling years more and also better academic results because of their increased knowledge. Therefore, in chain effect, leisure reading improves readers’ academic result because they have wider general knowledge. (Nippold, Duthie, & Larsen, 2005). With high self-confidence, readers generally can foster good relationship with other people, be independent and able to interact with society too (Rizopoulos & Wolpert, 2004). A true reader does not simply be able to read words. A true reader is able to read and understand the content of his or her reading as well as to relate the understanding to his or her own life and the environment around him or her. A true reader is also able to

Magazines also contain pictures and articles that are written on a lower reading level. Magazines are also more socially acceptable by the majority of the readers as compared to traditional books. Meanwhile, Camp (2007) added that newspapers and websites are preferable to readers as well because there are always something interesting to read there. Besides, not much hard work is needed when reading the newspapers or the internet (Ross, 2000). Readers can do a lot of things on the internet such as participate in forums, read eBook, read emails and read social media websites.

Reading becomes a leisure activity for most children when they are encouraged to read by parents or when parents read to them. When parents interact about reading or discuss text with children, children will take on the values on reading and are able to relate to the read text (Bailey, 2006). Parents play a major role in inculcating love of reading among children. Parents are children’s role model to develop interest in reading. Realising the importance of parents in children’s reading, educators encourage students to do more reading at home. The relationship between parents and children is also improved through reading.

To ensure the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, the original questions would be given to another sample with similar demographics. When the questionnaires