How Much Time Does a Child Need to Create a Reading Habit

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NAVA BHARATH NATIONAL SCHOOL

• Annur, Coimbatore

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(No Transcript)
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How Much Time Does a Child Need to Create a
Reading Habit?

• Although the headline of this post is focused on
  reading and puts the emphasis on children, to
  whom we will refer at the end, everything that
  follows is applicable to any habit and person, so
  do not stop reading it, because it is extremely
  interesting .

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• It all starts with a story that happened more
  than 70 years ago...
• Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon in the 1950s
  when he began to notice a strange pattern among
  his patients When Dr. Maltz performed an
  operation, like a nose job, for example, he found
  that it took the patient about 21 days to get
  used to seeing his new face. Similarly, when a
  patient had an arm or leg amputated, Maxwell
  Maltz noted that the patient felt a phantom limb
  for approximately 21 days before adjusting to the
  new situation.
• These experiences led Maltz to think about his
  own period of adaptation to changes and new
  behaviors, noting that it also took around 21
  days to acquire a new habit. Maltz wrote of these
  experiences, saying, "These and many other
  commonly observed phenomena tend to show that a
  minimum of about 21 days is required for an old
  mental image to dissolve and a new one to
  solidify."
• In 1960, Maltz published that quote and his other
  thoughts on behavior change in a book called
  Psycho-Cybernetics. The book became a box office
  success, selling over 30 million copies.

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• And that's when the trouble started...
• In the decades that followed, Maltz's work
  influenced nearly every major "self-help"
  practitioner, from Zig Ziglar to Brian Tracy to
  Tony Robbins. And as more people recited the
  story of Maltz, as in the "Telephone Game", where
  the participants whisper a phrase to each other
  until they reach the last one completely
  distorted people began to forget that he said "a
  minimum of about 21 days" and replaced it with
  "It takes 21 days to form a new habit."
• And that's how society began to spread the false
  myth that it takes 21 days to form a new habit
  (or 30 days or some other magic number). It is
  remarkable how often these terms are cited as
  statistical facts. Dangerous lesson If enough
  people say something enough times, everyone else
  starts to believe it.
• It makes sense why the 21 days myth would
  spread. It's easy to understand. The time frame
  is short enough to be inspiring, but long enough
  to be believable. And who wouldn't like the idea
  of ??changing their life in just three weeks? Can
  you imagine acquiring the habit of going to the
  gym in just that time?
• But the problem is that Maxwell Maltz was simply
  observing what was going on around him and was
  not making a statement of fact. Also, he made
  sure to say that this was the minimum time needed
  to adjust to a new change.

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• And a scientific study came to answer the
  question of how long it really takes to develop a
  habit...
• To answer the question of how long it really
  takes to develop a new habit from a scientific
  point of view, we can turn to the study by
  Phillippa Lally. This lady is a health psychology
  researcher at University College London. In a
  study published in the European Journal of Social
  Psychology, Lally and her research team set out
  to find out how long it actually takes to form a
  habit.
• The study examined the habits of 96 people over a
  12-week period. Each person chose a new habit for
  the 12 weeks and reported each day whether or not
  they did the behavior and how automatically the
  behavior manifested.
• Some people chose simple habits like drink a
  bottle of water with lunch. Others chose more
  difficult tasks such as "running for 15 minutes
  before dinner." At the end of 12 weeks, the
  researchers analyzed the data to determine how
  long it took each person to go from starting a
  new behavior to doing it automatically.

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• And the answer was
• On average, it takes over 2 months before a new
  behavior becomes automatic, 66 days to be exact .
  And the time it takes for a new habit to form can
  vary greatly depending on the behavior, the
  person, and the circumstances. In Lally's study,
  it took people between 18 and 254 days to form a
  new habit.
• In other words, if you want to set your
  expectations appropriately, the truth is that it
  will probably take you two to eight months to
  build a new behavior into your life, not 21 days.
• Interestingly, the researchers also found that
  "missing an opportunity to perform the behavior
  did not materially affect the process of habit
  formation." In other words, it doesn't matter if
  you mess up once in a while. Developing better
  habits is not an all-or-nothing process.

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• And the positive reading that we can make of all
  this is
• Let's talk about three reasons why this research
  is really inspiring
• First of all , there is no reason to criticize
  yourself if you try something for a few weeks and
  it doesn't become a habit. It's supposed to take
  you longer than that! There's no need to beat
  yourself up if you can't adopt a behavior in
  exactly 21 days.
• Second , you don't have to be perfect. Making a
  mistake once or twice has no measurable impact on
  your long-term habits. That's why you need to
  treat failure like a scientist, give yourself
  permission to make mistakes, and develop
  strategies to quickly get back on track.
• And third , adopting longer timeframes can help
  us realize that habits are a process and not an
  event. You have to embrace the process. You have
  to commit to the system.
• Understanding this early on makes it easier to
  manage expectations and commit to making small,
  incremental improvements, rather than pushing
  yourself to think you have to do it all at once.

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• And what about the reading habit in children,
  which was the title of this post?
• Well, the conclusion we wanted to reach is that
  we must be patient with our little ones. Do not
  give up on the effort and enjoy the process.
  Read, read and read. This, with patience, will
  lead our little ones to create the very important
  habit of reading. At Navabharath school, we dose
  reading through a novel format letters that the
  child receives. These letters include stories in
  which our little one is the protagonist in the
  first person. And, in addition, the reading of
  each letter leads him to look for a hidden clue
  in his own house. Do you dare to try it? 

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Contact Us

• Name NAVA BHARATH NATIONAL SCHOOL
• Address Sathy Road, Annur, Coimbatore - 641653
• Mobile [phone]
• E-mail info_at_navabharathschool.com
• Website www.navabharathschool.com