‘I often play basketball and I surf the internet. I watch TV everyday but I never read. At school, our teachers often say : “Reading is important” Why? I’m not interested!’
Surprise you are already reading quite a lot! How do you find out the results of the basketball league? Do you look them up in the newspaper? That’s reading. What do you do when you surf the Net? You read the screen. And how do you find out what’s on TV? You read the listings! Reading doesn’t only mean reading a book. There is written language everywhere around you : on packets of crisps, on buses, on street signs. Tomorrow, Try this experiment : take a piece of paper and make a note of everything you read on your way to school, even single words. At the end of the day, look at your list and see if you still think reading is unimportant.