Reading a book and watching TV

Reading

I love to read. A lot. This summer holiday I think I've read 40 books and a couple of them more than once. My Dad used to get frustrated with me as a child as I didn't like to leave the house without a book. My English teacher, a wonderful man called Mr Biddle, asked my parents to encourage me to read more. The two things appear to be opposites yet both apply to me. Why?

A flurry of news articles came out in 2016 about boys reading habits after research by Prof Topping.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8544091.stm

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/boys-girls-reading-skip-pages-books-education-schools-libraries-teachers-a7376956.html

I realised as I read the research that I would probably score less well than expected. Why? Well because I skip whole passages of books. I have loved 'The Hobbit' since reading it in class with Mr Biddle, I will be forever grateful for his passion for books I would not usually have read. Lord of the Rings trilogy are among my favourite books yet I don't read all of it. Imagine that you can't picture things and your favourite book contains page after page of landscape description. These pages are completely pointless to me as I can't see what's being described and so I skip them. I've talked to students who do exactly the same as me for the same reason and then score less well on reading tests.

TV

Sometimes I find myself incredibly confused watching tv. I really enjoyed a BBC drama last year called 'One of Us' and found myself watching some episodes twice to understand it. I realised that I was getting confused because I couldn't distinguish between the different actors! I was fine when they were on screen together or names were used and if not then, to me, they were too similar and the plot then made no sense. Frustrating! Shows like 'Game of Thrones' are too much for my prosopagnosia and to follow I'd need little moving character names following the actors around the screen ;) an alternative subtitles. I often feel like I'm missing out on popular shows whilst I watch shows & films I can follow.