Ten tekst jest prawdziwy! Z wielu względów, ale głównie dlatego, iż Ola, autorka tekstu, jest powszechnie widziana przez większość czasu z jakąś książką w ręce, i to niekoniecznie zawsze tylko z podręcznikiem szkolnym O wspaniałych korzyściach płynących z czytania dla przyjemności dowiemy się niedługo z wiosennego wydania naszej anglojęzycznej gazetki AimHigh Magazine; a tymczasem zapraszamy do przeczytania tekstu Oli Szczerbuk z klasy 4b!
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The key to social wellness
There is a lot of science that proves that reading has a significant influence on the human brain. Nowadays it is a real superpower. The best and most important benefit is boosting empathy and emotional intelligence (EI). EI helps with increasing “soft skills”- creativity, teamwork, learning new things, and flexibility. Emotional intelligence helps us understand others and our emotions. It’s the foundation of success in living and working together as a society, as it enables us to support, lead, and empower each other, and work together for a common goal.
Children with higher emotional intelligence stay more focused at school, make healthier choices and earn better grades, but what is the best, they easily create positive relations with peers.
In adults EI isn’t less important; it improves their mental health, socialization and career success. Employers look for strong emotional competencies in candidates. From the workplace to school, from family to community, emotional competence makes us happier and more successful.
Numerous studies prove that reading fiction increases empathy and EI. In addition to writing and critical thinking skills, reading allows children to walk in characters’ shoes, recognize their emotions and explore the new ones on the pages. Plus it stimulates kids’ imagination and creativity. Even though our emotional competence can benefit from reading at any age, we know that starting readers young is the best, and family reading plays a major role in a child’s EI development. By age four, most children use their strategies to manage their emotions. By age eight, children’s social and emotional functioning begins to stabilize, predicting their behaviour patterns and mental health later in life.
Reading brings many benefits to our social life: dealing with others, relationship skills, self-awareness, social- awareness, and responsible decision-making. For children, it means something a little bit different than for adults. By books kids learn recognizing their and others’ feelings and react to them properly. They become rich in vocabulary – characters in stories always describe their emotions, so children would imitate them in real life. It is a lot of ways to express anger or sadness by words – it is helpful with communication. Kids also will turn into critical thinkers. Young readers live exciting adventures and solve problems through characters during the plot. They can reflect and criticize characters’ decisions and also create their ideas of how they would act in the characters’ place. What is more, books help children identify with the characters in a story. Sometimes these characters speak and look like them. Sometimes, they live far away in space and time. Stories nurture empathy and encourage kids to celebrate human differences.
Reading is a beautiful key to social wellness and personal growth; for children and adults. It is never too late to become a reader.
Ola Szczerbuk, 4b
