The power of reading

Just like any other muscle in the body, the brain requires exercise to keep it strong and healthy, and reading is a very effective way to stimulate and exercise the brain. I didn’t know all the benefits that reading can cause in human beings. I wasn’t until I went through a certain experience, when I finally realized how important and necessary is for humans to read. The personal experience I had with reading was when I read the book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”. When I was 11 years old my whole group of friends were interested in reading, however for some reason I wouldn’t get interested in books or in reading. It was like that for about a year, up until I saw that my best friend was reading “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, I asked her what was the book about and she told me the main details of the story. For some reason the plot of the book made me get really interested in it. The book is a novel about an adolescent named Charlie and his path through his freshman year of high school. The novel is composed of letters, which Charlie has written to an unknown person. He tells this person about his life, his struggles, and triumphs but makes sure not to say anything that could point out who he is. I got interested in this book because it celebrates inclusivity and tolerance by showing how people can blossom when they are accepted for who they are and how painful life can be for people who are ignored or mistreated. When Charlie enters high school, he is withdrawn. He does not try to connect with people because he is actively dealing with the pain of the two traumatic experiences he has had to undergo. When I was reading this book, it opened my eyes, by showing me that life is not a bed of roses for some people, and that we have to be flexible and understanding to everyone, because we don’t know what people are going through in their private lives. After I was done reading this book I realized the importance of reading. I realized that reading develops the mind, It is how we discover new things. Books, magazines and even the Internet are learning tools which require the ability to read and understand what is read. I also developed a strong relationship to books and reading. I started reading several books, from different genres. I would say that I started reading at least one to two books a month. I also developed a huge interest in fiction and romance books.
Every since then I have had a huge passion in reading and learning new things by doing it. Having a passion for reading has helped me in several aspects and experiences in my life, such as improved focus and concentration, my analytical skills got better, learning a new language and I have also noticed that my memory has had an improvement too. The one that I considered the most important, was that having a passion for reading helped me to learn a new language, which is English. Two years ago, when to the US, I was able to understand some things but I was not fully able to talk or write in English. However, for me reading was not as hard as talking and writing.When I noticed that I found reading easier than writing and talking, I thought that it could be helpful to read the books I had read before again, but this time in English. Then I started reading books and what I did is that every word I did not understand or know, I would highlight them and look them up. I would write every new word and its meaning in a notebook. Every time I finished reading one of the books I had decided to read, I noticed progress in my writing and understanding of the language. In a matter of three months the progress in the way I spoke and wrote was huge. All the reading and learning I did happened before attending school because when I came to the US, it was summer break therefore I did not attend school until the summer break was over. When I started attending school, after taking an English exam for the school to know my English level. I got the highest level, and it was not necessary for my to take ESL classes or anything related to learning English. I know that if I had not read all those books to get better at speaking and writing en English, I would have not been able to take regular classes. After having that experience, I had no doubt of how powerful and helpful reading can be in several aspects of people’s lives. Reading did not only helped me to learn a new language or made me realize important life lessons, reading made me become a new me.

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