As reading
should be a-must in all countries and cultures, there are certain cultures, as Latin-American, where reading is
taken as a “hobby”, which means that there is a big percentage of the population
who read as an obligation more than as a necessity or opportunity to learn.
The act of
reading is implicit in many dimensions (academic, personal, job-related), so
people need to read as a way to communicate. However, this communication is developed in
basic levels, basic commands and basic instructions, without taken it further. For
academic purposes, reading performance needs to be higher. The development of
assessing strategies for reading skills has achieved many outcomes: visuals
aids, interactional activities, etc; the real problem for teachers is how to
encourage students to read.
Although
there are people who are curious and more interested into acquire new knowledge
and information, there are many others who are not. Students perceive reading
as a boring and tiring activity. Actually, teacher’s struggle along the years
has not been to design strategies to assess reading, but to encourage students
to perform the act of reading itself. The challenge is still there, perhaps, parents
should get involved and embrace a new attitude towards their children’s skills
development, and teach them at home to love reading and become this in a habit
more than an obligation.