IN this era of modern technology, computer games appear to be the favorite hobby of children.
Children as young as 5 years seem to be experts in using their gadget in order to play their favorite games.
They do not read books anymore.
But many institutions still strongly believe that children could be encouraged to read books.
One institution is the Quezon City Public Library (QCPL). In fact, the QCPL launched a “Back to Reading” campaign recently.
In doing this, QCPL has strongly encouraged the children to read “real” books.
In a statement, QCPL said reading is very important, “especially to children who spend most of their time online or playing with electronic gadgets and devices.”
Marlyn Bautista, QCPL Children’s Section head, said the purpose of the Back to Reading campaign is “to promote reading among children to diminish the time spent in surfing the Internet or playing digital games.”
Bautista added that “most of the children have already forgotten to read books because they were hooked on the Internet and their gadgets. Thus, the QCPL has established the Back to Reading program in order to promote reading books to the children.”
Aside from the reading project, the QCPL also held a three-day mob dance, where parents and their children from the Lib-and-Rary book club joined the dance in the Public Library lobby, Quezon City Hall lobby, Quezon Memorial Circle and the QCPL rooftop to stress the importance of reading.
The Lib-and-Rary book club was established in 2015 to encourage children develop an interest in reading books.
Its original members were five. It now has 447 members as of March this year.
The Lib-and-Rary book club is instrumental in the QCPL’s projects, such as reading tutorials, summer art workshops, story-telling, acting, dancing, film showing and puppet shows to promote the city library’s campaigns and advocacies.
The summer workshop started on April 16 and will end on May 21.
“So they can join the workshops and other library activities, the children must first become members of the Lib-and-Rary Book Club,” the QCPL Children’s section head said.
Bautista added that, to become a member of the Lib-and-Rary Book Club, the child should be 3 to 12 years old, a resident of Quezon City, and must submit an accomplished application form from the QCPL.
Encouraging the children to read books and further improve their reading-comprehension skills are part of Mayor Herbert M. Bautista’s top agenda—education—since he became Quezon City mayor.
Since then, Bautista, who has a Master of Public Administration program holder from the University of the Philippines-National College of Public Administration and Governance, has a lot of projects in education from elementary up to the college level.