I’ve never been a fan of reading. I can count on one hand the number of books I’ve read in my life. Most of those fingers would be accounting for books that were required reading for a class. You see, it’s not that I don’t like books. In fact, I don’t particularly dislike reading. However, I was diagnosed with ADD at an early age. ADD, for those of you that don’t know stands for Attention Deficit Disorder. Feel free to wiki the term to gain a broader knowledge. In my experience ADD is a vicious and extremely annoying. Essentially my mind wanders, especially while reading. I can be reading a book that I have a lot of interest in, or one that I don’t particularly care for and it will happen all the same. My mind will start to think of some random event or thing and that will dominate my attention. I will continue to read, in that the words will continue to be processed by everything but my brain. It is only after this has gone on for a good paragraph, a few sentences at least that I realize what is happening and have to refocus, and start the paragraph over.

This can make it very difficult to get through a book, or even a chapter. I’m currently reading a chapter in a book for my speech class and I’m having a bear of a time. Along with the fact that I have ADD, this has caused me to avoid books in general. As I stated, having read around 5 books total in my life, I haven’t had much practice. This equates to me being a slow reader. In fact, I just took two reading tests and one told me I was reading around 154 wpm and another rated me as between 150-200 wpm. That’s only double what I can type (74 wpm typing). So, this chapter I have been reading for over 2 hours and I have 17 of the 34 pages completed.

If there is one thing I could say to parents regarding their children, encourage them to read. At this point in time, it is one of the best ways to procure knowledge. Sure people can be taught information, but this requires another individual with the knowledge, and commonly costs quite a bit of money (college courses). A truly affordable way to gain knowledge of any subject is to be able to read well. And as they say, practice makes perfect.

Good reading skills are important! There is a wealth of knowledge in books.

And now I’m off to continue my battles and finish my reading. Only 2:54 am, maybe I can finish before the sun comes up!