How to Cultivate a Love for Reading and Writing

Nowadays, most young adults see writing as long, dreadful, and tedious work that they have to do at school. In reality, writing is a beautiful art that can change people’s lives once they find a love for it. Personally, I was never a fan of writing even when I was pretty good at it. I always just saw it as another monotonous task that school forced me to do, but everything changed this year when I decided to join the journalism class. In all of my classes, I was forced to write about specific topics that I didn’t necessarily care for. I was so restricted that I never truly saw what writing was really about. In my journalism class this year, I was able to write about whatever I wanted to. For me, this has been the biggest game changer as a writer. I found myself going to school excited to write and going home to research more about the topics I was writing about. I realized that writing was more than just a task, but an art. Writing can be seen as playing an instrument. When you play an instrument, you are expressing your feelings the same way you put your feelings on paper when you write. I found the beauty of writing this year and I want other kids and young adults to find the same love for reading and writing that I found. So the question is, how do you cultivate a love for writing?

First of all, for you to enjoy anything, you need to see it as a hobby. Let’s be honest with ourselves, can you think of anything that you have fun with that is not a hobby? Well, the truth is no. Unless you see school as a hobby, which honestly I believe nobody does, you are not eager to walk into a writing class and do the tasks that your teacher is giving you. To start appreciating writing, you need to start writing about topics you have interest in. For example, my first article was about music. Music is one of my favorite things, so writing about it was easy and pleasurable. Writing about things you appreciate will never be hard. If schools start to give freedom to students to write whatever they want, students will start seeing writing as a hobby, instead of a task.

In addition, something else that has helped me find writing as a hobby is writing in a comfortable environment. Personally, I like being by myself, plugging in my headphones, and just writing. Having the freedom to choose when and where to write at school has been very important for my journey as a writer. I write the best when I listen to music, and at my old school, I wasn’t allowed to do this no matter what. Here at Centner, I can concentrate on my ideas my own way. At my old school, writing in a place where there was constant talking about off topic things made my writing slower and more dreadful. From my experiences and others who have said the same, writing is facilitated and made more appreciable by choosing a comfortable writing environment.

Furthermore, reading has inspired me to become a better writer. For many people, reading is viewed the same way as writing. What I mean by that is reading is also seen as regular schoolwork now instead of a hobby. Keep in mind that I am talking about a majority population and I'm not talking about everybody because I know some people that still love reading and writing like I do. Reading might be hard for many people without proper support. In my opinion, traditional school backing, which is giving assignments and forcing students to read, hasn’t proved too effective as I’ve seen in my peers throughout many years. The strategies that I have seen the best results with is giving students time in class to read. Giving students time in class instead of telling a student to read at home as an assignment increases the probability that they will do their reading in class. Reading comprehension tasks are also really effective since they make reading necessary for the tasks. As a proficient reader and writer, these are my personal strategies.

I interviewed one of my good peers from an old school on how reading reforms should be made from the perspective of someone who doesn’t necessarily find interest in reading. He expressed how he didn’t enjoy reading due to how long it is. I then proceeded to ask what changes do you think might help improve the reading experience, and he told me that he would like to see the introduction of audiobooks to assist reading comprehension. I personally also believe that audio can heavily aid reading comprehension. I don’t necessarily use audiobooks unless I'm reading in Spanish because I can still look at the words while taking in the information better. I know a lot of schools don’t allow audiobooks, but I know a lot of people that will benefit from using audiobooks to assist with reading.

Contrary to popular belief, audiobooks actually have the same benefits as traditional reading. Studies show that audiobooks stimulate the same area of the brain as traditional reading. Another reason that audiobooks might be more beneficial than standard reading comes from a study from the University of Virginia that showed that 10 to 15% of eye movements during reading are actually regressive, meaning that your eyes go back and check information for much of the time during reading. When a teenager uses an audiobook, they can take in more information in a shorter amount of time which seems to be the main issue that's deterring kids from reading more often. Writing and reading go hand in hand, so when a young adult starts to find interest in reading, writing will come naturally.

In conclusion, cultivating a love for writing involves transforming it from a school task into a personal hobby by allowing students to choose topics they are passionate about and write in comfortable environments. Reading, similarly often viewed as a chore, can be made more engaging with methods like in class reading time, comprehension tasks, and the introduction of audiobooks. Studies and testimonies prove that these strategies are effective. These methods will help young adults view reading and writing as a hobby, and not a task.

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ABOUT DAVID

David Ramirez is a 14 year old freshman at Centner Academy. He shows a great interest in writing and looks to further excel his capabilities. He enjoys informative writing and writing for entertainment. David looks forward to sharing his writing with everyone. Outside of writing, David is a prolific musician and a race car driver.