IRISH writer, playwright, and politician Sir Richard Steele said, "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." Truly, one who reads more knows more.
However, in today's generation of gadgets and internet, this is seemingly the hardest challenge that we have to deal with. Children, even before they can learn to speak or write are now exposed to cellphones, tablets, and television.
Based on medical researches, exposure to technology slows down the brain. Nowadays, children do not get enough exercise. They spend most of their time with their gadgets. This lack of exercise is extremely bad for their physical and mental health because it can slow down their development.
In addition to this, extreme use of technology may cause kids to become dyslexic which can cause their brains to not grasp things quickly enough.
Furthermore, outdoor activities and more exercise are important in kids' development stage as they can encourage positive behavior, enabling them to gain confidence.
Moreover, the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment results revealed that the Philippines ranks last among 79 countries in reading comprehension. At the same time, based on the 2013 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS), there is a significant percentage in our youth who have cited lack of interest in education as a reason for not going to school-15 percent overall in the ages of six to 24 years old, and highest at 46.1 percent among those aged 12 to 15 years.
Even our best and brightest 15-year-olds who were tested in PISA were only at the average level globally -- and that statistically, many of our youth feel that they cannot rise above their current circumstances, or even see the benefits of proper, quality education.
These issues tell us that we need to do something very drastic now, and one of these concrete steps that we have to take is to bring back the love for reading. We have to make our children feel that reading is better than spending time online using their gadgets, playing video games, and watching television.
As we continuously battle with the COVID-19 pandemic, our children are left at homes under the distance learning modality. It is true that the effort to teach them and make them understand the necessary knowledge they need for them to acquire the required competencies is difficult to achieve because of various reasons. However, it is a challenge that parents like me must embrace and we need to address to close the gap in terms of the low performance in terms of reading skills. Now is the time for us to encourage our children to read by themselves and for them to make sense what they have read.
In closing, I would like to leave you all with this quote from author George R.R. Martin from his book A Dance with Dragons: "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one."