When was the last time you picked up a book? If you're a student and spend a lot of time reading or you're in a full-time job that involves reading, it can feel like a chore to read a book in your spare time. Even if your work doesn't involve a lot of reading, when you feel tired the idea of reading may not appeal as much as putting on Netflix.
Sometimes we can feel as though we ought to be reading certain type of books (like non-fiction, personal development, or classics that we find hard to read) that just don't genuinely appeal to us and end up stifling our enjoyment of reading.
Whether you're a book worm or haven't read a book since high school. World Book Night took place this week and was an opportunity to join with others across the country who will be curling up with a book for an hour in the evening.
what is World Book Night?
This event is run by The Reading Agency, a UK-wide charity that tackles life’s big challenges through the proven power of reading. In England, 31% of adults don’t read for pleasure, rising to 46% of young people (aged 16 to 24). We know that reading for pleasure is linked to fewer feelings of stress and depression, better sleeping patterns and improved literacy.
Road to Reading
This year, The Reading Agency are running the Road to Reading. Change your life, 30 minutes at a time! You can still sign up and pledge to read for just 30 minutes every week and see what a difference it makes.
Each week World Book Night will share advice, reading recommendations and more, while keeping an eye on your progress to help you along the way. Participants’ reading journey will also form part of a national reading research project, helping The Reading Agency to transform the lives of more people across the UK.
The Road to Reading will last 10 weeks, but will be the start of a lifetime of regular reading.
ESOL students visit the library for World Book Night
Reading is one of the best things a language learner can do to increase the speed at which they acquire the new language and grow their vocabulary. Our ESOL tutors were keen to take the opportunity to encourage their students to read on World Book Night.
The day before a visit to Worthing library was arranged where more confident ESOL students visited Worthing Library independently, found what was on offer and completed a seeking task to find books of different genres, e.g. space, biography, music.
Students were encouraged to borrow books from the asphaleia mini-library. They looked at a stack of books and, with tutor and peer guidance, sorted them into fiction and non-fiction piles.
During their Personal, Social and Community session, some students were shown how to access the World Book Night website. Some answered brief questions based on summaries of the Quick Reads books promoted on the website.
why not join in?
It's not too late to look at the selection of books on the WBN website and get one via kindle or another ebook platform. If you have a pile of books at home you want to get through then read one of those! We'd love to see who is taking part so send us a message or tag us in a post to let us know you're doing the Road to Reading!