A reading mind is a curious mind

Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.”

 Reading is the bedrock of education. It builds a person's faculties in comprehension and concentration, especially from early childhood.

Therefore, it is delightful to hear that Ghana has won the right to host the World Book Capital dubbed, "Accra World Book Capital 2023". 
The year-long programme encourages reading to educate and entertain.

It is themed: “Reading to Connect Minds for Social Transformation”.

Hence, it is appropriate to promote reading and the relevance of it.

New ideas

Many scholars have argued that reading introduces the mind to new ideas.

It is impossible not to learn something new each time one reads.

Reading can be done, ostensibly for leisure.

However, it ultimately results in the acquisition of knowledge.

Hence, people who are avid readers speak coherently and advance arguments intelligently.

Accordingly, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said, “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”

In the same fashion, Ralph Waldo Emerson also shared a similar view, “The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimension.”

These assertions lend credence to the fact that reading builds the mental capacity and imparts knowledge in the individual.

Therefore, inculcating the habit of reading early in children will build their curiosity of mind and an insatiable quest for knowledge.

Above all, such kids always appear as critical thinkers.  

Bill Gates observed, "I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot."

His words are evident in the varied ideas the Microsoft founder got exposed to at an early age.

Subsequently, Bill Gates has generated an enormous utility in the world.

The Microsoft founder is impacting the world like none other.

Malcolm X intimated that "My alma mater was books, a good library…

I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity."

Who will dispute the fact that this great African-American had an unparalleled intellect and was an exceptional orator who delighted his audience?

The world today is not exhausted in referring to him and his works. It is a result of reading.

Ernest Hemingway rightly stated, “There is no friend as loyal as a book”.

A curious mind developed at an early age will never stop seeking knowledge. 

Strategies

Reading exposes the reader to varied strategies for solving problems, which transforms societies.

Hence, Chinua Achebe said, “My weapon is literature.”

Furthermore, reading will help a child to navigate the way into higher education with a good sense of understanding and appreciation of facts.

The child will articulate and write well, question facts and evidence and critically think through before settling on any choice.

Hence, the relevance of the observation by Eric Wireko, “Incessant reading is the light that apprehends darkness in learning,”
On the other hand, children not introduced to reading early, struggle with communication and appear to have no confidence, coupled with having poor articulation and writing skills.

Moreover, such children write boringly and poorly.

They shuffle to keep and delight their audience, because of the repetitiveness of expressions and unexciting wobble use of words.  

Critical

Additionally, child psychologists emphasise  the idea of the critical period starting from childhood to the end of puberty.

If a child forms a habit and interest in reading at this stage of development, such a child will stick to it throughout life.

Therefore, Frederick Douglass states, "Once you learn to read, you will be forever free”.

Because the knowledge that will set the child free from ignorance is in books.

Napoleon Bonaparte stated, "There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind.

In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the mind".

This calls for the continuous development of the mind through reading for the well-being of the individual and nation.

Let’s keep reading to connect minds for social transformation.

The writer is Head, Public Relations’

Complementary Education Agency (MoE)

E-mail: ayalolo@gmail.com