How important is to read?

One of the biggest challenges that I have faced myself as an adult to study at the university level is reading.
Why? Because I don't like to read. I remember that I was told to read some novels in middle and high school, but these novels never were selected by me. The teacher ALWAYS tells us what to read, no matter what I would like to read, so we never got the chance to pick a book of our interest, NEVER.
How much would this have marked a difference in my life? A LOT... Now the question again is why?
Let me answer why would this had have changed my present me or marked a difference. As an adult, I believe that by reading we have access to one of the biggest sources of information: BOOKS... It doesn't matter it the book is on paper or it is a digital version. Books can provide us knowledge, entertainment and let us learn how to do new things, or see how was life before us. Maybe by now I would have read many interesting books and be a more knowledgeable person.
Why didn't my teachers teach me to love the habit of reading books?
Now, it is my duty as an adult to find a way to read a little bit more every day until I get used to it, and more importantly to teach my little ones to love the habit of reading.
I was impressed how much the Westwood kids love to read. Since pre-k, they are teaching them, how a reader should behave or what a reader should do to be an active reader. They explain to them how to understand, take note of a reading or analyze a story.
Westwood, it is using the Heinemann’s Philosophy that empowers teachers to help students through reading to become literate, empathetic, knowledgeable citizens.
Every day students grabbed their reading basket and had the opportunity to go shopping in their classroom library (OMG, yes! they have a library in their classroom, for sure this takes years) but students can go and see the cover or maybe read the back cover to make their selection, then they can read alone o read in pairs, they gather on the carpet to talk about their readings. I was in a second grade, and they never complain about reading a book, they always showed excitement and interest in the reading class.
For sure this is something that I want to try in Panama. I will assign some minutes to read every day and have some activities to complement, like write your own ending of a story, or find some solutions for a character problem and so forth.