Literacy is driven by the habit of reading and not just by writing well or learning how to write well. Reading is a habit that drives you on from one book to another in search of knowledge. Reading does not bore one if pursued endlessly. Right from grade one, it may be recollected, that at the end of the year we had to report on the number of books we had read in the course of the whole year. Somehow one book led to the reading of another and yet another. No boredom and no strain - just a thirst for more and more of those books. That is what reading is supposed to do to you, if you keep at it continuously.

Even though writing contributes to our growth as a person, it is reading that makes us what we are. There's so much to learn from books.

Reading improves Your Mental Aptitude

Reading helps develop a stronger mental aptitude. How then will a novel help when it is not related to any of the subjects at school? In fact how can it increase mental aptitude?

Keeping the brain active helps it remain alive and thinking. This is what reading does to you. Scientists have stated that we use so little of our brains - what with all the equipment around us - that our brains are not as sharp, and slow to function. At the drop of a hat, we reach out for that calculator rather than exert the brain to work out a small mathematical problem or calculation.

Reading helps keep our brain thinking and imagining. The words out there staring us in the face as we read, help put the brain into the action surrounding the thoughts and ideas projected. So doesn't this make you smarter?

Does Reading Help You Earn More?

It's true that earlier people worked hard and earned well too without the education that is available today! But that is how life was earlier, and they made a success of it in spite of little or no education at all.

Some people succeed without a formal education but, is it not better to make a position in life with education than to make it well in life without education? Would you rather be the sales man in a car store or be the owner of the car store? This is what you have to decide for yourself. Reading helps you rise in life by creating dreams for yourself and helping yourself progress by the day.

Reading helps you gain knowledge in subjects which you have not been introduced to at school. Learning never comes to an end and books help you pursue this thirst for knowledge.