Communication Matters (Part 4)
Read your way to success
“Reading is important. If you know how to read, then the whole world opens up to you.” — Barack Obama
How many of us realize that reading is an important aspect of the communication skills arsenal? Honestly speaking, many of us do not. In fact, those of us who are proficient in it, do not realize how lucky we are! At a time when ‘reading’ is getting more and more confined to reading messages on social media, it becomes mandatory to define ‘reading’ as an activity that enhances your cognitive abilities.
So, how can we define the ‘R’ in the LSRW package?
“Reading is an act of communication in which information is transferred from a transmitter to a receiver” (Smith 1973:2)
According to Stallfter (1969), teachers define reading as:
“a complicated procedure. Readers read to get information from the printed pages. They should be able to pronounce and comprehend the printed words, signs, letters, and symbols by assigning meaning to them.”
Reading is then the cognitive process of understanding symbols to arrive at the meaning. It essentially means processing language.
You must now be wondering why reading is discussed in a context where we are looking at ways to improve communication skills. Well, do you know that good reading skill is intrinsically connected to your professional success? Let me lay out why you should practise reading for you to understand how it will help you to become a good communicator.
Why should we practise ‘Reading’?
i. Best Mental Workout: Reading exercises your brain in an easy and enjoyable manner. Because it stimulates your brain, it keeps you alert and agile. Just like any other muscle in the body the brain requires exercise to keep it fit — you use it or lose it. Researches have proved that playing mind games such as chess and solving puzzles is a sure way to delay or even prevent Alzheimer’s disease and Dementia.
ii. Knowledge gain: Needless to say that reading widens your perspective and deepens your knowledge as you absorb information, contemplate, think, wonder, and analyse the body of writing before you. Reading provides you the essential food for thought. A person who is well-read and therefore more knowledgeable will definitely have better chances to climb up the ladder quicker than others.
Improves your vocabulary: The best way to become proficient in a language is by indulging in vociferous reading. As you come across new words, understand their meaning in the context, your memory tends to retain those new words and this, in turn, enriches not only your vocabulary but also your memory. Over a period of time, you will have a wide range of words to choose from to express yourself
ii. Enhances your speaking and writing skills: The more you read and the more new words you come across, they will invariably become part of your everyday vocabulary. This will make you a very articulate person who will find the right words in the right time in the right context — the essential elements of effective communication and you can only agree with me that effective communication is the secret of success.
iii. Miscellaneous: Apart from the above, which would be of immediate relevance for you, there are several other things that reading does to you. It makes you humble in that you realize there is so much more that you do not know and hence you should read; it helps you enhance your concentration; it keeps you entertained at a very low cost or no cost; it is a stress buster; and if you indulge in highly contemplative reading, it will provide succour to your soul.
I am sure you will agree with Margaret Fuller who stated: “Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”
I just attempted a graphical representation of how reading works:
With the boom in the information and reading materials available to us via the Internet, it cannot get any easier to choose a topic to read about and start indulging in it straightaway.
Some of you might enjoy reading a book — a hard copy — the touch and feel of which will make you feel so blissful and I a one among them! There will be avid readers among you who choose ebooks and forums such as Medium to enlighten yourself. Whichever you choose, now read with the cognizance that you making quick steps towards excelling in your career. There will be a few among you who restrict your reading to reading emails and messages on social media. Please make a sincere effort to read at least a few pages a day on a topic that interests you.
Happy Reading
