Get hooked on
s k o Bo BY RYLAN BUTT A&E Editor In recent years, many high school students don’t read outside of their literature pieces and classic books taught in their English classes and either don’t know or want to read for pleasure. A survey done of 80 Sequoia students from various grade levels shows that roughly 50 percent of students don’t read outside of school. Students may feel like reading is a chore since they have only been exposed to
about the world from just reading,” San Carlos Librarian Deidre Brill said. One student who reads outside of school is freshman Axel Larson, who shared his opinion on the difference between reading in a classroom and reading for fun. “When you’re reading for like an English class, you’re reading a different way, you’re reading for content knowledge[...]” Larson said, “but when you’re reading for pleasure, you’re more focused just [on] getting wrapped up in the book instead of trying to remember special events.”
When you’re reading for pleasure, you’re more focused just [on] getting wrapped up in the book instead of trying to remember special events. Axel Larson, freshman
one form of reading and have never read for pleasure on their own. Reading has a wide variety of benefits that many students neglect as they have only been exposed to reading they don’t enjoy. It can be very interesting and open up new opportunities for learning. “It provides windows and mirrors. So the idea is that you have the window into somebody else’s world, you get to learn more
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of the brain that’s activated when we read for pleasure can also be activated when we’re listening to podcasts, or when we’re reading the news or even reading the internet,” Media Specialist Elizabeth Snow said. Students sometimes may dislike reading classic books such as “The Great Gatsby,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “Of Mice and Men,” which makes them dislike reading as a whole. These students should know that the “great” books aren’t the only books they can read. “And you should read the great books, but it’s also okay to just read something that you connect with, like it’s perfectly fine to not enjoy ‘Catcher in the Rye’. So my suggestion is to try something else,” Brill said. For students who don’t enjoy reading, it is important to pick a book about a topic that they will enjoy reading about, otherwise you may have a bad first impression of reading. Finding books on topics you enjoy will make the experience more fun and personal. There are many resources available to highschool students that will help you find books such
According to a blog from Business Insider, a global news website, consistently reading has been proven to strengthen neural pathways, increasing our memory and empathy capabilities. I would advise students who don’t like to read to try it out so they can take advantage of some of these benefits while diving into a story they enjoy. “I’ve learned over the years that that part
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Junior Aiden Jackson reading in the Media Center. Photo by Rylan Butt
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