Friday Facts About Reading

I haven’t done a Friday Facts post in a while. Hope you enjoy this one.

Since I’ve been focused on Reading for several weeks—mostly nonfiction with a scattering of Romance Novels—I thought this was the perfect time to share these…

LATEST FACTS ABOUT READING

1. Reading makes you smarter. According Education professor Anne E. Cunningham  found that frequent reading helps one retain knowledge and recall that knowledge later in life. Why? The more one reads, the more information is stored and made available to the brain.

2.  50% of adults cannot read an 8th-grade level book. The Literacy Project released a statistical report in 2019 that showed 

3. 3 out of 4 people on welfare cannot read. Another statistic from The Literacy Project. 

4. 85% of juveniles who end up in the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate. From statistics on DoSomething.org, a collective of young people who want to change the world, 

5. Reading makes you kinder and more empathetic. According to researchers at Kingston University in London, frequent readers are inclined to see things from other people’s points of view.

6. Reading improves your focus, memory, and communication skills.

7. Reading actually exercises your brain. This helps it stay “young.”

8. Reading helps you live longer. A 12-year study on health and retirement found that those who read books survived about 2 years longer than those who didn’t read books or magazines. Those who read for 30 minutes a day, or 3 1/2 hours each week, were 23% more likely to outlive those who didn’t read often.

9. Reading has shown to be 600% more beneficial in fighting stress than playing a video game.

Joan Reeves aka SlingWords: The Word Slinging Adventures of Joan Reeves