"Reading from a young age has lasting benefits that continues to give back to you. Considerable research and studies have taken place to highlight the correlation between progressive/advanced levels of reading and improved cognitive function, concentration/focus, literacy and vocabulary."
Joshua helps schools every day as a senior service desk analyst and specialist providing advanced technical support which on a busy day can be for a number of schools all at the same time! His varied role also includes working with the Product, Development and Customer Success teams and running product analytics and diagnostics, installations and integrations with our software.
Which feature of our library software do you get asked about most?
At the moment I’m commonly in communication regarding Student Provisioning. This involves Importing/Updating Student (Borrower) details in the system, setting up student logins, reminders, restrictions and then specific library helper accounts. As student import can be done by the school either manually or via automated integrations with Wonde, I assist with both.
Growing up did you identify with a particular character in a children’s book?
Growing up I can’t say I identified with any specific characters from the books I read, but I was very into fantasy novels by authors such as R. A. Salvatore, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Typically Dungeons & Dragons/Tolkienesque stories. Alternatively in my younger years I read a lot of “adventure game books/choose your own adventure” where you’d almost be playing a game like Dungeons and Dragons i.e. If taking the north path, head to page X, if taking the path to the west, head to page Y and see where the story led you.
Do you have a favourite film based on a book and which was best of the two?
My favourite films based on a book would be the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Phenomenal books and movies. It’s actually hard to pick which one I preferred as when reading, you use your imagination to create the images and details whereas with a film, it’s done for you. Both have benefits and were quite similar but due to the level of detail included in the films (which is mostly absent from most other movies) I think I prefer sitting back relaxing watching the films these days.
When you go into a library or bookshop, which area do you always go to first?
As you may have guessed, typically I would go into the fantasy section as this would be my preferred genre to read.
How important do you think it is to instill a love of reading in a child?
I think it is imperative to instill the love of reading in children today. Reading from a young age has lasting benefits that continues to give back to you. Considerable research and studies have taken place to highlight the correlation between progressive/advanced levels of reading and improved cognitive function, concentration/focus, literacy and vocabulary. It’s also a great hobby/pastime which can have other effects on your mental health in a number of ways.
One of the ways I benefitted most from reading was the idea of escapism into a mythical fantasy world where magical things seemed real and were described as such. This highlights a much more creative and imaginative usage of time encouraged by reading for pleasure as opposed to scrolling through social media and occasionally encountering some questionable content or finding yourself asking why is this being celebrated.
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