READING HABITS

When I look at the different pictures about reading habits, I realise that our reading habits have changed significantly during the last decades. Nowadays, with the use of the internet and the social media, we read a wide variety of texts such as blogs, online articles or posts written by people who are not always writers. Therefore, I believe that not all texts are based on scientific evidence. It is ironic that, although we now have access to a wider variety of texts than in the past, statistics show that young people do not read too much. Taking into account my experience as a reader, I do not read so many paper books as I did in the past. If I read for pleasure, I normally choose printed books, but If I read for professional purposes, I choose a wide variety of text formats. On the other hand, in my first language I usually read novels or short stories in paper format during my free time. In English, I usually read texts on digital devices in order to have a quicker access to information and to apply it in my lessons. Finally, as teachers, I would like to point out that the most important challenge is to motivate our students to read, and reading in a foreign language is even more difficult to achieve successfully.