BOYS AND READING

How do you encourage reading, especially in young boys? This is one of the questions posed to Student of Life recently and a question the nation has been asking itself for years now. According to research boys lose interest in reading around the age of 7 and the lack of interest slowly or sometimes rapidly continues from then on. In a climate where a lot of young people in the UK (some as young as 7) have a TV, DVD player, anywhere upto 4 game consoles in their room, a mobile phone and a portable game console a la PSP, Nintendo DS etc, is it any wonder? Maybe I'm just having a go because when I was young it was just about lego and some Fisher Price toys.



Reading for me, was a way of keeping my troubled teenage mind sane. A place of solace, release and nurturing of my imagination. I went from Roald Dahl's The magic finger to The Chronicles of Narnia, Dr Who, Redwall, Back to the future, The famished road and many more. The books became my friend, I was so into them. Reading or wanting to read stems from a desire to learn something or acquire something. A desire to suspend reality, to exercise the imagination, to become that which we can't or experience the impossible. Where has that desire gone and can it be found again? The fast life we live in says, why wait when everything is at your fingertips. Why read when you can watch the movie, TV programme or watch it on youtube? We're becoming a more visual society and science has proved that you retain less by reading. Maybe books will evolve to become more visual. But for now, the question remains how do we get young boys to read more? Is it about the parents, about the schools, or the authors. We're really interested in hearing from you. Thanks