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World Book Day
On the first Thursday in March each year, World Book Day takes place in the United Kingdom.
This has been celebrated annually since it was first launched in this country, back in 1998, by then Prime Minister Tony Blair. Across the world, other countries celebrate in similar fashion, although sometimes on a different date, and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) organises the event on a huge scale.
Did you know that the purpose of World Book Day is to promote a love of reading, the art of publishing and the role of copyright?
And - did you know that Book Day has been observed in Spain since 1926 (in October), in honour of author Miguel de Cervantes, who is best known for his novel Don Quixote, a work that has come to be regarded as the first modern novel – quite incredible given that he lived between about 1547 and 1616!
I love to read, and I am an avid browser of bookshops - you will rarely see me managing to pass a purveyor of the printed word without diving in for a quick look! There is something wonderful about opening a new acquisition for the first time, that new book smell and, to quote Walt Disney, the excitement of knowing
There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.
I have written several blog posts in the past about the beauty of, and power in, reading but this week it was some simple statistics that stuck with me – I thought they were too impactful to not share:
- If you read for 20 minutes per day, you’ll be exposed to 1,800,000 words per year;
- If you read for 5 minutes per day, you’ll be exposed to 282,000 words per year;
- If you read for 1 minute per day, you’ll be exposed to only 8,000 words per year.
What a huge contrast in impact between reading for 5 minutes and extending your time by another concerted 15! What a shock to see the impact of only one minute of reading per day.
I’m sure, therefore, it won’t take much effort for you to work out which of the 3 categories of reader correlates with the following typical standardised test scores:
- A student who falls within the top 10% of those assessed;
- A student who falls within the top half of all those assessed;
- A student whose score is within the lowest 10% of all those assessed.
Why? Well, by starting small and establishing a habit of reading for just 20 minutes every day, here is the cumulative effect:
20 minutes of reading per day, on just the 5 school days, leads to 400 minutes of reading by the end of the month and 3600 minutes (60 hours!) by the end of the school year.
Whereas 1 minute per day leads to 180 minutes (only 3 hours) across the year.
Given the amount of time we aimlessly scroll our social media feeds and our electronic devices in this modern world, it’s surely worth setting them aside for 20 minutes each day to pick up a book instead, and escape into its pages?
Reading truly does pay off.
