JEDDAH, 26 April 2006 — Al-Ibtikar Private School will kick off a six-day book fair on Saturday to introduce the habit of reading to children.
Under the banner “Today’s Readers, Tomorrow’s Leaders,” the event aims to counter the incursion of technology into children’s daily lives and develop a new generation interested in books.
“The book fair is a step toward building a new generation that reads,” said Lina Naseef, Al-Ibtikar Private School’s owner and headmistress. The fair will run through May 4 on the school’s premises.
The fair targets parents, teachers and anyone else who supervises kindergarten and elementary school children.
Naseef said that recent studies have shown the importance of reading as being the basis of all other learning processes.
“Reading builds a database in students’ minds to enable them become excellent students,” she said.
The book fair will be divided into a variety of sections, including ones showing the papermaking process, bookbinding and how newspapers are put together and distributed. One section will be devoted to stimulating an interest in children in reading the Holy Qur’an. Authors of children’s stories will also be invited to the fair.
According to Naseef, this book fair is an extension of the first child creativity conference that took place in February 2005.
