Dr. Judy Kamalodeen
I have been worried about our reading habits for a long time. It seems children are reading less and less -- both in and out of school.
And literacy, if you ask me, is a downward trend.
And then there is the issue of comprehension, which has been on a slippery slope for a long time.
This seems like a crisis to me but others appear to be numb to it.
So while this weighs heavy on my mind, most of our teachers seem to accept it as part of life. Parents too appear indifferent.
We can lament all we want as to why this is happening. But there seems to be enough blame to go around.
So, if this is the case about reading in general, what does it mean for reading the kind of Islamic literature that we produce? Who is going to read our books?
Maybe one way to deal with this reading crisis is that we should have reading circles and read-alouds and public reading sessions of all kinds. What we need really is a reading campaign.
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