On Thursday the 7th of March, we celebrated one of the most important days there is for education – World Book Day. You may ask yourself, why is World Book Day so important to schools? Well, there is a plethora of reasons as to its importance, but I will only name a few! Firstly, in the digital world that we live in, it is up to the power of the written word to stoke the imagination and transport the mind. Through reading, we learn about others, we learn to empathise and we learn about new places and different cultures, which reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, coming from Belle in Beauty and the Beast, she said, “I like books better than mirrors. Mirrors only show us what we are. Books show us what we can be.” Or, as Roald Dahl put it so wonderfully in Matilda, “Matilda travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in her little English village.”
It is so important that we instill in our pupils and children the importance of reading for pleasure. Research clearly shows that children who enjoy reading improve their reading, writing and vocabulary competencies. However, it also shows improvement in overall cognitive abilities, higher levels of motivation towards school, an increase in empathy and social skills, improvement of health and wellbeing and higher stimulation of the imagination.
Reading is truly a universal subject, and I hope this World Book Day that we have inspired our pupils to read more for pleasure!
