UAE parents should embrace technology to get children reading more, experts say

With this year being the Year of Reading, the onus is on parents, schools and children themselves to get more involved in reading books - but that can also be on the tablets that children love.

Lily Khaled, 7, reads a book at the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival. Victor Besa for The National.

SHARJAH // Children find iPads more fun than reading books, parents say, but experts have said that the technology should be utilised if we are to develop a generation of readers.

With this year being named the Year of Reading by the Government, the onus is on parents, schools and children themselves to get more involved in reading books.

But parents attending the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival recently said that youngsters consider reading a chore, unlike using tablets, which they consider fun and trendy.

Ahlam Reda, a mother of three, said that trying to get her children to read is tough.

“Kids these days would spend hours using their tablets, while reading a book is not on their favourable list of things,” said the 31-year-old Egyptian.

However, Zahra Ali, a mother and a librarian at Sharjah Model School for Girls, said that parents should embrace any medium that children use, as long as they learn to read.

“Parents should embrace the new technologies and use it as a tool to help their children to read more, whether it’s children’s books, games, educational material, it will be interesting to the children and engages them more than books.

“We need more children reading. We have to raise a generation of book lovers — they are the country’s future.”

Publishers in the region are also making the tech transition easier by increasingly making more titles available on tablets.

Jordanian Publishing house owner Mones Hattab said reading on electronic devices is profitable.

“Parents typically read to children while they are young but, when they start to grow, the kids as early as one year old get introduced to iPads and mobiles; by the age of two or three they start playing games on the devices,” he said.

“We converted some of our titles into apps and the electronic copies generated good sales, and we expect more as we convert more titles into electronic form.

“There will always be paper books for people to read, however, with the technology we have today, we are shifting our priority for children books to be available electronically.”

Ms Reda added: “I’m an avid reader, I read stories to my girls at bed time, however, with their electronic devices, they would rather read and play on it rather than picking up a book or a story.” Her 12-year-old daughter downloads children’s books from app stores. “Her tablet is full of educational games, and children’s stories, which I consider a good thing, as long as she is learning and reading.”

She came to the Sharjah reading festival to pick up stories for her 4-year-old daughter Muna, who still enjoys bedtime stories.

“It’s vital that children read, whether on tablets, paper; we want them to keep reading to broaden their imagination and open up their minds,” the Al Qasimiya resident said.

Mira Hamad, a 17-year-old school pupil from Al Nouf, said reading books reminds her of studying and homework. “Whenever I hold a book to read, it reminds me of studying, which I don’t really like,” she said.

“I have a tablet that I use to read stories on. It’s fast, beautiful and more trendy.”

Ajman resident Rena Vizirialina was strolling through the reading festival with her husband and 2-year-old daughter Mia looking for stories in English.

“Although she is young, I want to make a habit of reading in her; it will help her imagination and building her character,” said the 25-year-old Ukrainian housewife.

“We are searching for new stories for Mia. We read for her Ukrainian ones and now we think that she should start learning English.”

The eighth edition of the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival was held at Sharjah Expo Centre and hosted more than 1,500 events for children. About 130 publishers from 15 countries were present also.