Improving Literacy With Puzzle Books

A puzzle book is a way that you could improve your literacy level and that can make reading more fun especially if you have an interest already in puzzles whilst at the same time possibly developing numerous other beneficial skills. A decent literacy level is important just to function in everyday life but also a lot of jobs require that you can read and write to a good standard so it makes sense to invest time into this area as you are investing in yourself and your life prospects. A person's literacy level in basic terms is their ability to read, write, speak, listen and use numbers and to have achieved a high level that person will have to be well-read. How much somebody can improve their literacy level by reading a puzzle book will be determined by their own mental ability, the effort and time they put in and the content of the puzzle book they read. The younger a person can start to read the better as children are like sponges with their brains still developing and growing so can improve and learn a lot in short spaces of time therefore if you have or know kids then it is worth getting them in the habit of reading at the earliest age possible and puzzle books are an enjoyable way to do this that could engage those who are reluctant. Parents or guardians should particularly bear this in mind when it comes to education because if a child or young person has a bad literacy level then being at school will likely be a very difficult and discouraging experience for them and they can be left behind which impacts their life chances. For adults, it is not too late to potentially improve your literacy level whether you have a low or high level if you put in the time although it may take more time and effort to see noticeable or big improvements which can be life-changing. Puzzle books do have content that is meant for and is appealing to adults either by how challenging the puzzles they contain are, the information they contain within or with the theme. If you want to improve your literacy level it is important to try to read every day and there will be numerous opportunities during the day to fit in some reading time such as on the commute to work if you are not driving or during a lunch break or just before you go to bed with the more time you can devote to reading the faster and better your literacy level will likely improve. You may have to sacrifice something in order to fit in your reading time such as watching the TV that doesn't in itself have much benefit so you can replace it with something that does. A puzzle book can come in numerous forms like a regular book that has pages made of paper or on an electronic device like a phone or ebook that allows you to have access to thousands of books in the palm of your hand. This means you don't have to go all the way to the shops to get a book or loan one from the library where there could be a limited choice rather you could just download one from the comfort of your home. There are different types of puzzles in puzzle books such as mysteries, riddles, crosswords, escape rooms, etc so you will have a wide variety to choose from and will hopefully find one or more that will appeal to your specific tastes and that will help improve your literacy in different ways. The puzzle books that you need to choose though are ones that offer a lot of sentences and paragraphs like stories as you will likely be able to improve your level at a much faster rate by reading these and not puzzle books that offer very short or no sentences like a word search as this will perhaps help improve your vocabulary but not really help your overall literacy level. The level of difficulty you start at will depend on your own level of puzzle ability and reading level and it is best to go with a level you are comfortable with as to not discourage yourself before you have really started but that will still challenge you as that is the only way you will improve is to be tested and keep testing yourself. Puzzle books with stories could be a great way to improve literacy because they will contain many long sentences and should be well structured with paragraphs and have good grammar so it is likely going to help you improve in many ways. Puzzle stories will usually be works of fiction and targeted at one level of difficulty whereas books with riddles may have many levels of difficulty contained within one book and there is usually a progression from easy to difficult so you will likely have to acquire multiple single level of difficulty puzzle storybooks of different levels of difficulty to achieve the same progression. Puzzle stories will usually involve a mystery or an unexplained event in which clues will be sprinkled throughout the book until there is a big reveal and you can try to solve the mystery before is it revealed or the book will have stages and you must solve a puzzle at every stage in order to advance to the next stage before you solve the overall mystery. The puzzle book may come in the form of a quiz in which you can be presented with a series of brain teaser questions that may require you to have a very broad general knowledge and you will be able to test your general knowledge and broaden it further by finding out answers to facts you did not know. There may even be a paragraph in the quiz book about a subject that goes into detail about what you have been quizzed on that could be another way of possibly improving your overall vocabulary. If you don't like the idea of reading because it is a solitary experience then it can be a group activity that you could do with your family or your friends in which you ask each other a puzzle question or one of you reads the story out and the other tries to work out the mystery or you do it in tandem. If you can make the experience of reading more fun which is the whole point of picking puzzles as an area to read by doing it with other people then you are more likely to carry on doing it and you can also help others possibly improve their literacy levels as well. Reading with others can also have social benefits as you can possibly make friends or improve your relations with your friends or your family and perhaps improve skills like teamwork and communication which are transferable skills. You can put into practice the literacy skills you may have acquired and developed by writing your own puzzles or your own puzzle story as you can then also try to develop further your written skills and maybe make a career out of it if you get good at it. Writing your own material will likely require a lot of practice to improve as well as gain confidence and you may need to seek help from somebody who has already done something similar to get advice or check your work but there are plenty of resources on the internet to help you write your own book, for example, there are courses available or websites dedicated to showing you how to do this. In conclusion, puzzle books have an extremely broad appeal and can be a fun and mentally challenging way to go about improving your literacy level that will not just be a reading exercise and other beneficial skills could also be acquired at the same time. Reading puzzle books and following any of the actions mentioned in this article will not guarantee that your literacy level improves and if you want to achieve this you are best consulting a teacher or expert in this field who would know how to improve your level as they can also take into consideration your personal circumstances.