People look at reading in different ways, while some people read almost constantly, there are also those who only read when they have to. What can be seen from these two groups of people is that those who read more are generally better writers.

The mandatory reading is usually things like training materials for a job or textbooks for school. The voluntary reading generally falls in to two categories, entertainment and self improvement. While many people would argue that the self-help type books might be more beneficial to read than those written and sold as entertainment, the truth is that any reading at all will help you in life.

One of the biggest benefits of reading is that it can help improve your ability to write. It does this by helping you become more familiar with a larger variety of words (and thus increasing your vocabulary so you are not constantly repeating the same words) and also making you more accustomed to proper sentence structure. Another benefit of reading is that it if you read a variety of material from a variety of authors, it will be easier for you to develop your won writing style and help you recognize different writing styles.

Many people may think that they are not writers and don’t need to be extremely proficient writers, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. No matter who you are or what your occupation, there are going to be times in life when you will need to be able to write. Whether it is just for friendly letters, holiday letters, thank you cards, or a letter to a company that you do business with, being a good writer is beneficial for everyone and reading can help you be a good writer.

If you don’t currently read very often, I would definitely suggest that you start. I know it can be tough to work some “reading time” into your schedule, but it is something that we all (myself included) should try to do.