English Tuition: Why reading matters!

English Tuition can provide a very dramatic boost to pupils’ understanding and appreciation of language. The ‘aha’ moments when students realise the value of language and its power to change and shape meaning make teaching an unbeatable and most humbling profession!

I was once asked by a parent why reading mattered so much. There was perhaps an expectation that good tecahing could do everything and that reading was rather out of date.

Of course, Tuition can really help boost grades and analyses, but reading REALLY MATTERS I say time and time again.

And the reason is quite simple. If we don’t read, then our vocabulary remains static, our thinking remains comparatively restricted and even our sense of who we are seems underdeveloped.

I always remember teaching The Tempest at Bolton School many years ago. The unfortunate ‘creature’ Caliban, is imprisoned upon his own island by Prospero a colonising magician exiled in turn from his own home by a usurping brother. Caliban’s anger at his imprisonment by Prospero is exacerbated by his horror that Prospero has taught him ‘language’, which ironically reveals the depths of his own misery and anger.

Yet as we read the play we realise that Caliban’s negative version of himself is not the whole story. In fact, Caliban has a facility for self expression which is  beautiful and transformative. He has the best lines on the play and probably some of the most lyrical phrases in Shakesepeare. His reading of the world makes him a better character and eventually he regains his island and his linguistic mastery gives him the power to reflect upon his world and to preserve his experience for himself.

Language is linked always to power.

Reading makes us more powerful, it gives us a vocabulary by which we may become far greater acqainted with ourselves and our world.

Finding a book to read may be one of the best actions anyone can do today!

Posted in Book Reviews