Filipino Friday: Reading Habits and Book Formats

Reading Habits and Book Formats
Where and how do you read? Can you read anywhere and everywhere, or do you need a certain place/mood/state of mind to get reading? Do you read more in the morning or at night or any minute that you can? Where and how do you usually read? Are you exclusively for print, or do you go for ebooks more than print? Have you ever tried audiobooks?

 It's Filipino Friday once again! This time, joiners are asked to look at their reading habits. Here's my take.

Reading happens all the time and for different reasons. We read signs to find our way. We read faces of people and their actions to understand unspoken social cues and underlying messages they could not speak of. We read because we're bored. We read to learn. We read to unlearn. We read because we want to impress. We read because we wish to be free.

Reading is part of the four communication art skills. The three being, listening, speaking and writing. All four integrate and are integral to comprehension, knowledge creation and survival. What makes reading a book extra special for me is that, I develop a personal relationship with the author and the creators of the book when I engage in it. Books I've read and loved are friends. Thank you to the team who dreamed of creating and producing such good friends.

So, I really get disappointed for badly created books. Sayang. What would have been a wonderful communion of ideas and experiences would never be. But then again, I remind myself, as a librarian, one tenet of readers' services is "Every book a reader. Every reader a book." And I have to respect and observe that law.

As far as my own reading choices go, I like reading both print and digital formats. I am still loyal to the printed book though, especially because I'm a school librarian and my advocacy is very much immersed in literacy development among young people. While digital natives of this generation can seamlessly operate on technological gadgets to read and learn, they need to develop the basic and fundamental literacy skills (from word recognition and vocabulary, comprehension and context building, study skills to work skills) Reading printed books can do that. These literacy skills are essential in learning more complicated skills and the new literacy - media literacy, digital literacy, information literacy, cultural literacy, family literacy, etc.

What's amazing is, the reading and learning of fundamental literacy skills and new literacy can happen simultaneously. It is thus important that all types of reading formats, genre and kinds are made available for the ardent reader.