Topic: It is believed that people who read for pleasure develop their imagination more and acquire better language skills compared to people who prefer watching television. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Many people opine that reading is a better medium than television to enhance language skills and creativity. I fully agree with this opinion because when we read for recreation, we use our imagination to get involved in the story. We also often remember the words we read there by improving our vocabulary.

To initiate, most of the novels people read only use text to convey ideas. There are no images or illustrations in these books. Hence, people for whom reading is a hobby have to use their own imagination to get involved in the story. For example, one has to imagine what a wizard would look like while reading a Harry Potter novel, but while watching the movie on television, different images of wizards are created for the viewers. Hence, while the images seen on the television do remain with the viewer, it is different from using one´s own imagination. This may help later in life especially when pursuing a career in advertising or some other creative field.

Furthermore, reading is one of the best ways to expand one´s vocabulary as the reader sees the correct spelling and it generally registers in the subconscious mind. They are also able to understand the meaning of the word from the context, without having to look it up in a dictionary. This helps them to remember the word for future use. Most of the schools nowadays have understood this and they use English novels as teaching materials. Students have to read the story and capture the keywords to answer the questions in the exam. They are also asked to change the ending of the stories based on their imaginations. In comparison, learning new words while watching a TV show isn´t always easy because the viewer´s attention is drawn to the action on the screen and if there are no subtitles, the spelling of the words is not obvious. All this makes a book a more effective tool for a language learner as compared to TV.

In conclusion, I believe people who love to read tend to have a more active imagination and better language skills than those who watch television, since readers are required to imagine the story in the book and learn the meaning of new words from the context.(376 words).