By Ayla Dickerson
At the beginning of the 2024 school year, choice reading was implemented into all English classes, allotting fifteen minutes per block class for students to read. Although this opportunity has allowed students to read topics of their interests and grow their knowledge through books, the Emily Capell Society says that to obtain the full benefits reading has to offer one must read fifteen to thirty minutes daily.
According to University of the People, reading has numerous positive effects including strengthening brain activity, boosting communication skills, enhancing creativity and reducing stress levels. Along with the many personal benefits reading has to offer, a study conducted by the National Library of Medicine investigated the correlation between reading fictional narratives and higher empathy levels. The study concluded that, “Transportation into fictional narratives [via reading] influence empathy over time; a lack of transportation is related to lower empathy.”
Mrs. Hannah Zeisler, an Intervention Specialist in the SAIL department at McNicholas, said, “The whole point I think [of reading] is to gain empathy for people.” She stated that, “Through reading you learn the ability to put yourself in other people’s shoes and it helps you to realize that people need to be kind to each other, whether you have the same belief system as them or not, they’re people first. You can learn this through reading because you get that understanding of seeing the characters as people first and then you can you apply it to your own life.”
Zeisler also commented on the importance of reading historical books, whether they are fiction or nonfiction ones. She said, “Historical books teach us about events that have occurred in the past that we don’t want repeated. Students read a lot about the Holocaust or WWII2 in school, and the reason we are still reading about events like this was because they were so horrible. We don’t want to repeat that type of horribleness in the world ever again so if we read about it and learn about it, we can grow from it.”
McNicholas librarian, Mrs. Chelsea Almer said, “Reading opens our eyes to different experiences that maybe we have not had, but that we can read about somebody else having. It gives us insight into lives and experiences that perhaps we didn’t know about before.”
Zeisler encourages everyone to “try and read something that may be outside of their comfort zone. Read books about things and people that are different for them, so you can be more empathetic towards people who are different than you.”
The McNicholas Milestone 