Reading in the Era of Social Media: Understanding Gifted Students’ Habits and Attitude Towards Reading

Reading is essential in the process of growth in youth as it improves brain connectivity, increases vocabulary and comprehension, acts as a mental stimulation and so much more. This paper aims to understand the reading habits and attitudes of the students in Kolej GENIUS Insan (KGI). The students enrolled in this secondary school have a high intelligence quotient (IQ) compared to their peers in other schools and are described to be gifted and talented students. A questionnaire was designed in a quantitative manner and distributed to the 50 students of Foundation 3 where only 45 out of 50 responded. The questionnaire analysed the students’ reading habits, preferences and attitudes towards reading. It was revealed that most of the students enjoyed reading especially novels and fiction as they find the activity fun but if given the choice they would much rather watch movies or listen to music. They would usually read to fill up their boredom and some spend time reading as long as 30 minutes to 1 hour while others spend 1 to 2 hours. Most students read to expand their knowledge and brush up their linguistic skills and understand that reading has a positive impact on their academic performances. Some students also faced difficulty in reading as sometimes they lack motivation to read or there was a lack of reading materials around them and while most of them preferred more pictures in the reading materials, others were already fine with how the reading material was. Based on the findings, several recommendations were made to improve the students’ reading habits and attitude. Conducting this survey is essential as it helps the lecturers and parents of the students to truly understand the reading habits and reading attitude of the students in KGI and more actions could be taken to benefit their positive attitude towards reading.