Reading habit must be inculcated in the young, say authors

Reading habit must be inculcated in the young, say authors

The Indian Society of Authors ended a year-long programme on reading habits with a two-day seminar held at the YMCA in New Delhi on March 27 and 28.

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The main points that emerged during the discussions included:

• The love for reading needs to be instilled at a very young age. If parents are book lovers and read at home while the children are around, the children naturally develop a love for reading. But modern nuclear families where both the father and the mother work, children hardly find their parents reading book. Yet some far-sighted parents squeeze in time to read books and also to read out books for children.

• In rural areas and also in urban areas where large clusters of poor live, most of the parents are illiterate. So social activists must come forward to take books to this section of children. Efforts in this direction are already on… Story telling groups are emerging.

• Every school must have a library. Organisations such as the National Book Trust and the Children's Book Trust produce excellent books while keeping the price low. The books of these organisations could be ideal for building a library in schools in slum areas and rural areas.