As a new blogger, this first blog post
is intimidation extraordinaire. Just like when I start a new
journal, I feel at a loss of what to say and where to commence my new
relationship with the blank page in front of me. However, since this
is actually intended to be read by others, and is not a secret saga
in my journal, I will start by conscientiously considering my
audience. So, dear reader, let us both start on the same page by
talking about what you are doing right now in your life...
R... R-e-a-d...Read...-ing...Reading...
Yeah, you can do it. At least, you
must be able to since you're reading this. To tell the truth, you
can't stop yourself from doing it once your eye alights on a word.
That's why it takes you longer to say what color a purple word is if
the word says green. It's called the Stroop effect, and it works
because reading something you do unconsciously and compulsively now
that you know how; and reading is something that you do all the time.
Now imagine that you can't read...
nilch. Road signs, magazines, prescription labels on drugs, recipes,
maps, menus, instruction manuals... they are all merely picturesque
scribbles—artistic, perhaps, but also meaningless and frustrating.
But you wouldn't be alone. Around 29
million other adult Americans possess no more than the very basic
literacy skills, according to my textbook on “Communication
Sciences and Disorders: A contemporary perspective” by L.M.
Justice (2006). This is a serious disadvantage, affecting one's
mental development as well as one's potential in society—and
overlapping somewhere along the line with crime as most of the US
prison population lacks literacy skills.
Illiteracy is a real problem. Or is it
just a problem in typographic North America? It is possible for
nations to exist without a written language. However, note that most
advanced civilizations—from Egyptian to Mayan to Roman to
European—all had a form of writing and literacy. Be it what it
may, there is something to the written word. Reading is important.
We start out learning to read, and end up reading to learn. Have you ever considered how much
reading affects your life?
The more I think about reading and
language, the more I realize how much I am consciously and
unconsciously influenced by it... but that is musing for another day. So come back sometime; you're always welcome.
