and details about the Māpuna Library Team Summer Reading Programme

Reading is like just about everything else in life, the more you do it the better you get.

If your children stop reading for extended periods of time, they often take a few steps backwards in their reading improvement.  For this reason, it is important to encourage children to keep reading during the holidays despite the distraction of friends, relatives and holiday events. Remember that joining a library is free, and it also costs nothing to take out a book out to read.

Suggestions to Consider

It is important that ‘down time’ takes place when the hustle and bustle and jovial interaction of the holidays is in process. 

Listed below are a few ideas to increase your children’s holiday reading.

Create a Holiday Tradition of Reading

One of the best ways to keep your son interested in reading during the holidays is to create holiday traditions of reading fun books during these special times. By picking interesting books with holiday themes and making it a family experience, they develop positive thoughts about holiday family reading traditions. Making sure that they get at least one book as a holiday gift is another way of providing a natural opportunity to read.

Don’t Overdo It

While it is wise and very effective to provide fun holiday reading experiences, it is important to not overdo it. It is easy to have children experience burn-out during a time when they should be enjoying their holiday break from formal schooling.  It is better to keep the holiday reading tradition short and leave your children kids begging for more than to take so long that they are begging for a break. Let them enjoy adequate social time as well.

I believe that reading is important because it helps each person grow mentally, emotionally and psychologically. Every book gives the reader an opportunity to learn new things and explore new ideas. Reading books increases knowledge and makes the reader smarter:

Reading helps you discover yourself

Every good book opens new dimensions of thoughts for the reader. When you read a book, you somehow try to connect the events, emotions, experiences and characters in the books with yourself. This not only keeps you engrossed into the book, but it also makes you realize how you would react and feel to those situations that have not yet occurred in your life.

It helps you broaden your dimension of likes and dislikes and things that would please you. So, with every page that you read, you have a chance to discover a new part of yourself!

Reading imparts valuable lessons from years of experiences

Books are not written in a day.  For an author, it takes a lot of hard work, understanding, experiences, knowledge and in many cases lots of pain to come up with a single book.  We as a reader get to read them in just weeks or days thereby living years of experiences in considerably less time.

Reading improves your Focus and Concentration

The Internet has revolutionized our world, but there’s a huge drawback too. For many of us, a large part of our day is spent surfing, chatting, watching videos, reading unnecessary memes and articles online. No wonder people are growing more impatient and losing focus.

However, reading books is one of those constructive habits that help us improve our concentration power. It helps us to train our brain to focus our attention and live in the present.

Reading improves your emotional health

Books are full of emotions. Sometimes they will make you cry with every turning page and sometimes they will just keep you smiling. Books can make us happy, sad, jealous, loved, betrayed and so on! Books are thus an amalgamation of different mixed emotions that ultimately help us grow emotionally!

Reading helps you develop your memory

There are a lot of things that we need to remember while reading a book. Name of the characters and their features, name of the places, plots and sub-plots, the sequence of events, important conversations etc. are some of the key information we need to keep in mind while reading.  The ability to retain these information keeps improving with the number of books that you read.

As your brain learns to remember the information from the story-line, it also becomes better at remembering other things of your life.  So, by reading books, you are also indirectly training your brain in improving your memory.

Reading is a great source of motivation

Life is tricky. Sometimes there are moments in our life when we feel down and discouraged. We may lose our hope and interest in life and just want to give up. In times like this, sometimes all we need is a little motivation, a little push in the right direction.

Reading a good inspirational book during such period can change our way of thinking and give us hope and motivation and help us transform our lives positively.

Reading expands the readers knowledge and makes them smarter

Books are a very rich source of information. With every book you read, you get to learn new things. The more you read, the more you know about different people, their behaviours and experiences, different places, different cultures and facts that otherwise you would not have known.

Reading broadens your Imagination and enhances your creativity

“It was a bright cold day on April, and the clocks were striking thirteen”.  This is the famous opening line of the novel 1984 by George Orwell.

How do you interpret this line? We hardly experience conditions like this. A standard clock strikes a maximum twelve times. Similarly, we rarely have a day both bright and cold simultaneously.  A line like Orwell’s makes you think, and that is the beauty of books! They make you imagine things beyond possibility – things that would not come to your mind normally.  Books give you a lot to think about. They also give you the opportunity to have your own perspectives and imaginations into play!

• MĀPUNA LIBRARY SUMMER READING

The school library is running a summer reading programme where students can fill out the attached questionnaire, and our Library Staff will pick 10 mystery titles for them to take away in a summer reading bag over the holidays!

Please note, when filling out the questionnaire with their favourite genres, series, books etc. please give as much detail as possible, so we can give more accurate recommendations. Then  bring it into the school library and we’ll fill you a bag.

If you’d rather choose your own books for summer reading you can pick the 10 books yourself,to pop in your reading bag.

This is a great opportunity for your sonto keep up with their reading for pleasure and have less screen time!