How Important is Reading?

In front of me right now are two books.

One is titled: "Teaching Kids to Read" and the other: "Supporting Struggling Readers and Writers".

Through my brief interactions with students, I have come to realised that it is important to learn how to read.

When it comes to picking up a language like English, there are various components to it. I like to break it down to 3 main components of reading, writing and speaking.

All my life, I have slowly come to accept that speaking is perhaps the most important skill that one can have. After all, great leaders and sales people are known to be very eloquent. It is indeed hard to find a successful person who does not speak well.

However, I have also come to realise the importance of reading. Without being able to read, people are not able to gain knowledge. If one cannot read, you simply cannot comprehend the information that is presented to you in textbooks or books.

On the flip side, not being able to read perhaps frees one from group think that commonly exists in society. It enables one to search for the truth through experiments and thinking. A lot of great people were known to have problems reading.

If one was not able to read the news about investment, will it make the person more immune to the fluctuations in the stock market? Will it make the person a shrewder investor compared to one who is always reading up on the latest happenings?

So how important is reading really?