Once Ju­ly rolls around, you can bet I will be hound­ing you about hol­i­day read­ing. The sim­ple act of read­ing as­sures that stu­dents will re­turn to school in Sep­tem­ber ahead of their peers, aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly speak­ing. Read­ing is the foun­da­tion for all learn­ing.

As au­thor Mary Leon­hardt says, "The so­phis­ti­cat­ed skills de­mand­ed by high-lev­el aca­d­e­m­ic or pro­fes­sion­al work–the abil­i­ty to un­der­stand mul­ti­ple plots or com­plex is­sues, a sen­si­tiv­i­ty to tone, the ex­per­tise to know im­me­di­ate­ly what is cru­cial to a text and what can be skimmed–can be ac­quired on­ly through years of avid read­ing."

When we speak of hol­i­day read­ing, we're speak­ing of some­thing called free, vol­un­tary read­ing (FVR). This means read­ing be­cause you choose to read. There are no re­stric­tions, and you don't have to fin­ish a book. Of course, you are bet­ter off if you see the book through to the end.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers