Prioritize reading of fiction. We put too much emphasis on reading for education, but reading can be a great escape too.

People need escape mechanisms. Reading fiction is an escape and it makes people more literate and more articulate.

Educating the low level stuff is just as important as the high level stuff. And by low level stuff, I mean the ability to form coherent sentences, and arrange those into paragraphs.

Just running tons and tons of text through the brain helps with this. My Spanish verb conjugation, for example, got much better when I started reading Spanish literature. Because a good story eventually covers all the bases of all the tenses for conjugation, many many times. It’s so much more effective than a textbook on conjugation.

We learn by examples. Especially language. The best way to learn language is unconsciously, as a side effect of trying to communicate. A good story grips the reader’s conscious mind on the plot, allowing the absorption of the linguistic rules to be absorbed unconsciously.

We don’t have enough respect for fiction. We think people need to read about physics or history to get smarter. No. They can read about an adventure, and get smarter. Just like a person can play soccer and get more skilled. Drills are fine, but just playing the game makes you better too, and it’s so much more engaging than doing drills.