Sharjah: The Ministry of Education and publishing houses at the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival (SCRF) are on the same page when it comes to encouraging young people to spend more time reading.
The way forward to ensure literate future generations is through implementing reading initiatives in school educational programmes.
The sixth festival was opened by His Highness Dr Shaikh Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah on Tuesday at the Expo Centre Sharjah.
While class time allocated specifically to reading is not implemented in every school in the UAE, the Ministry of Education may consider future plans of including reading classes as a part of school curriculums, said Haifa Al Darwish, the Director of the Department of Libraries and Knowledge Facilities at the Ministry of Education, during the festival.
Libraries in public schools across the country are being developed and activated as part of a ministry initiative to provide students with the right resources and environment for reading, said Haifa. The initiative’s first cycle, which started in 2010, has developed around 100 school libraries over three years by providing them with new furniture, shelves, and books. The first cycle was completed in 2013 and was followed by the start of the second phase, which introduced the concept of smart boards and the electronic index to school libraries.
“The smart board is an interactive way to engage the students — and is operated through software that can display any subject from the school’s curriculum,” said Haifa.
Right tools
The ministry is also providing training workshops for teachers to learn how to operate the boards. Also as part of the second phase, the ministry has provided 100 school libraries with an electronic index that keeps track of the checking in and checking out of books by students.
“Each generation has its culture — so we are trying to incorporate reading and technology by providing the right tools to encourage reading among students of this generation.”
Each school in the UAE is required to carry out a reading week every year during April, to highlight the importance of reading, she added.
Tamer Saeed, Business Development Manager of Kalimat Publishing Group, also told Gulf News that they carry out an average of 55 events a year to encourage reading among students at schools, bookshops and book readings.
“It comes down to almost one event per week that focuses on promoting reading and the variety of books among children,” said Saeed.
Horouf Educational Publishing, part of the Kalimat Publishing Group, also implemented their ‘Big Book’ initiative in 2013. The initiative provides books for young children that contain texts in large font and attractive images and illustrations that encourage interactive group reading sessions. The big books have been used at 284 schools.
Daily habit
In support of plans to enforce reading in schools across the country, ninth grade teacher at Al Sahwa School in Sharjah, Maysoun Abu said reading has been incorporated in different subjects in the school’s curriculum.
“Students are required to do a lot of reading for different subjects, and separate classes for reading in Arabic and English are also a part of the programme,” she said. While not every school follows the same system, a group of students from Saleh School in Sharjah who were at the reading festival, said they are not required to read at school but have made reading a daily habit.
“I like to read every night before I go to bed and I usually borrow my books from the school library,” said Dalia Abdul Rahman, a grade nine student.
Her classmate Fatima Mohammad said she prefers to read using her an ebook application on her iPad. “I’ve set a goal of reading four books per month,” said Fatima.
The reading festival is also one of many annual initiatives that give young people a chance to explore the world of books. This year, the festival is hosting 124 publishing houses from 17 countries. Held under the theme “Discover Friends for Life”, the festival will feature 1,694 events to be presented by 175 guests, of whom 95 are writers, artists and academicians from the UAE and abroad. The annual event is scheduled to run until April 25.
