Yea I know. I talked about almost the exact opposite a few posts ago. That reading as a habit is pretty much dead nowadays.
But c’mon, you didn’t really think I’d resigned myself to that notion, did you? No self-promoting, self-respecting writer would ever want that, or say that. Other than in a moment of frustration!
Which was kinda what that post I wrote had been about. Venting my frustration.
Except I had ridden on what another said, not what I really agreed with.
And I seriously can’t agree to it. (Even if there’s overwhelming evidence that it’s happening all around me)
Because that would mean I’d given up hope. A hope that people haven’t totally abdicated their capacity to read and to think. To be creative. To love the sheer euphoria of discovering the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. When they’ve searched high and low. Far and wide. Long and deep. For succulent knowledge that drips like honey into our very souls!
Knowledge that nourishes us. Gives us insights through our hard work of reading, thinking, pondering, ruminating, reflecting, analysing…Need I go on?
So, I want to bring back reading to the fore. To get back up on my reading horse first. Then, to “preach” it and encourage others (including my own kids!) to do the same.
Why The Sudden Clarion Call To Read Again?
You may be asking, what has prompted me now to such an impassioned call to rebuild my own reading habit again?
One word: Technology.
I’ve been a ‘victim’ of its seductive allure for longer than I should. And what’s worse, in recent times, I feel like I’ve succumbed even further. Every day I look at screens as much as (if not more than) any full-time working adult. In every air-conditioned office, sitting behind a desk and (these days, at least) two computer monitors.
And I’m supposed to be working part-time while being a stay-at-home dad!
And every night in bed, I’m doomscrolling all the major social media platforms (I’m too ashamed to name them here, nor do I want to give them more publicity than they already wield!). Then, before falling asleep, I plug in my AirPods to listen to audio replays of episodes from my all-time favourite 80’s sitcom The Golden Girls (there, I said it. Full shameless disclosure!!).
What happened to me? It used to be book reading that lulled me to Lalaland. Now, it’s a streaming platform.
But in my defence, I do read daily. Mostly news articles and essays online, as well as audiobooks. A few print books now and then too. Yet rarely am I able to pay attention to the pages for more than five to ten minutes without my mind wandering elsewhere.
Still, I know I need a better plan moving forward if I’m to recover the desire and passion for reading that once had me (in my pre-device days) reading for hours!
And you know what? I’m not alone in this longing.
As though in agreement with me, my nation’s National Library Board (NLB) recently announced a monetary incentive plan for reading across the country!
Can We Restore Reading Through A Reward System?
Last week, the NLB announced a new five-year national reading movement called ReadSG.
The public agency that oversees our 28 local library outlets is calling on people to sign up to a government crowdsourcing site, where people can log their daily reading sessions (of at least 15 minutes each) to collect virtual coins. A thousand such coins can then be exchanged for a real dollar.
Many would be sceptical about attaching a monetary award to something as ubiquitous as reading. And there’s every chance it won’t work. It certainly didn’t for me a couple of years ago when, spurred by an essay a mother wrote in The New York Times, I offered my eldest son up to $50 if he completed one book.
The experiment was a complete flop!
Still, my experience might be the exception. And the NLB is at least signalling to us in no uncertain terms that reading is no longer ubiquitous nor a given anymore.
At least one commentary I saw this week seemed to agree with NLB’s decision. The commentary mentioned research that supports tying a monetary incentive to reading. In a research paper published in 2011, Harvard University economist Roland Fryer cited an experiment he did in over 200 urban schools across three cities in the US to better understand the impact of financial incentives on student achievement.
In one of the cities, Dallas, second-graders were given US$2 every time they read a book. These kids successfully completed a computerised quiz about it, and ended up roughly 2½ months ahead in reading comprehension versus the experiment’s control group.
Educators and policymakers noted that for an investment of about US$20 a child, it is one of the cheapest, most effective reading interventions tried out.
While certainly worth a stab, I’m going to need more than this monetary incentive plan to restart my reading habit.
This week, I think I found just such a plan!
How Much Is Too Much When It Comes To Reading?
This week, I came upon an entry in Substack that offered up what I thought were possible reading plans I could try over the span of eight weeks.
But before launching into details of these proposed reading plans, the writer posed a really useful question that I find myself pondering:
“Given who you are and what you know about yourself, given the season of life you’re in right now, how much do you want to be reading every day?”
Well, given that I’m hitting 60 in four years, I think I should be moving into a state of deeper reading. I should be challenging myself to absorb harder material commensurate with my age and lived experience.
Which makes the following plan the writer offered my choice to rescue my reading over the next eight weeks!
Week 1: 10 min a day — in one go
Week 2: 15 min a day+ 2 longer reads during the week: 30 & 45 min
Week 3: 25 min a day + 2 longer reads during the week: 45 & 45 min
Week 4: 30 min a day + 2 longer reads during the week: 45 & 60 min
Week 5: 35 min a day + 3 longer reads during the week: 45m x 3
Then Week 6: 45 min a day + 3 longer reads: 45m, 60m, 90m
Week 7: 60 min a day + 2 longer reads: 90 & 90 min
Then Week 8: 60 min a day + 2 longer reads: 90 min & 2 hrs
Thereafter, to celebrate progress: read 300 pages in 24 hrs – could be one afternoon/evening and then the following morning.
A challenge I shall take up, starting Monday!
Wish me luck okay?
[PS If this fails, there’s always Blinkist! Thanks to my NLB membership, I now have free access to its premium pages!]
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