When I look at these photos and think about my reading habits, I realize how they have changed over the years. Our society is constantly changing and our reading strategies must be adapted to this changes.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A2008_BostonPublicLibrary_2223721594.jpg
The first image reminds me to one of the most important stages of my life at the university. When I was studying my degree I used to visit the library everyday to research, study or making project with my classmates. We worked with different types of text (narrative, descriptive, essays, dissertations, report, news, etc...) and specific ones that we used to photocopy. During these years, I wrote down a lot of notes that I organised in different subjects to read and study. The majority of these texts and books were chose by the teachers.
But I also enjoyed the library when I had free time to read for pleasure. I like to read all different kind of books, but I love adventures books with which I can discover new worlds and lives throughout the pages of a good book.
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Moving to the next picture brings back memories of the importance of modeling in reading to children. When I was a child, my mother was a model for me everyday while she read the newspaper during her rest on the work. We, especially teachers and parents, but also the rest of our society have the important mission of guiding our children during the reading process. If we help them everyday and in every situation (shopping, reading books at home, walking down the street, travelling, etc...) their reading comprehension will improve exponentially.
"2011 handheld device 5817790915" by Richard from New York, United States - Mom and her new iPad. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2011_handheld_device_5817790915.jpg#mediaviewer/File:2011_handheld_device_5817790915.jpg
Our reading habits have moved from analog to digital. Nowadays, I read almost all the text in a digital device (mobile phone, tablet, digital board, laptop, etc...). Since we have free access to Internet, we can have all the information we need in just one click. Memorizing and reproducing are still important process, but we need tools and strategies to learn how to organize, analyze, select and recover all that information.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARed_House_School_English_class.jpg
Reading is a daily routine in my life. I read messages, I read information, I read to programe my activities, I read to look for information in books, I read the new laws or instructions related with my job as a teacher, I read news, I read the activities of my students, I read to be a model with my students, I read the text in my on-line course, I read recipes, I read the when I go shopping, etc... I came to the conclusion that I am the whole day reading. But if I pay attention and I analyze where and what do I read, I can say that the most of my reading are digital and they are related with work, education and information. Reading for pleasure is one of the field of reading that I miss. I try to read some of my favourites books but I always end up reading text or books about education because I like it to much. The problem is that sometimes I get the burnout feeling and I need to change my reading habits. For that reason, when I read for pleasure I prefer the good old print books and their unmistakable smell and presence. They allow me to focus and get in to the role of the characters with no distractions.
"2005 Baimasi China 58727908" by James Jin from North Yorkshire, UK - Man reading paper at Baimasi. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons –
But it does not matter our objective, we have to see reading as an oportunity to discover new knowledge which we can practise everywhere and whenever we want. Reading offers us the liberty to be free and to have good time. The more reading strategies we know and practise the more reading comprenhension we will get. I enjoy reading texts in L1 and L2. I can read texts of any kind in both languages. Thanks to English, a new door has been opened to me in the world of reading. I can have access to more information which is not possible to find in my native language. I usually wonder, how would it be my life without reading?
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