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Promoting Reading: Everyone’s Obligation*
Words that transform themselves into ideas to let our imaginations soar,
words that touch our senses and spark our desire to know and think. All of
this can happen when we open a book.
To open a book and read is a basic right of every child, young person,
and human being. It is the key that opens up doors to common histories
and culture. For that reason, reading should form an integral part of
the agendas of educational and cultural policy and practice.
The opportunity that human beings have for “learning to learn” in a
permanent and integral manner diminishes quickly if the tools to
partake in these opportunities are not made available. The development
of cognitive abilities must be stimulated so that everyone’s basic
opportunities are developed to the greatest extent possible while at
the same time avoiding the onset of the inequities that will arise
later on in the maturing process.
To awaken language and deepen the senses by forming early learning
habits is a strong and integral tool; a transversal tool through which
the rest of knowledge and other ongoing learning possibilities flows.
In this way, the formation of expressive, imaginative, and
knowledge-productive citizens can be facilitated. We are talking of
embarking on a journey of maturation and growth that begins with a
mother’s reading, touching of story books and experiences in libraries
and children’s reading rooms, and then continues with the creation of
independent academic habits that support access to university or
specialized libraries, as well as access --throughout one’s life—to
either a public library or a digital library located on an Internet
portal.
In addition, the skills developed through traditional forms of reading
today are challenged by the new fields that remind us of the speed
with which information and knowledge travel in the context of a global
society: the quantity and quality of facts to process, their
presentation in various multimedia and digital formats, and their
appearance in a variety of foreign languages. At the same time, the
creation of regional economic communities has opened the playing field
to include work environments that require intelligent heads and hands.
For that reason, promoting reading as a public policy is a positive
step for change and growth that requires continuity, long-term
planning, and successful design of resources and means, as well as
human resource training. In this sense, the desire to read should be
stimulated, since learning to read in an information and knowledge
society implies much more than mastering the ABC’s if one is to be
able to fully participate, both as an employee and a citizen. The
already wide gap of traditional illiteracy in the region now competes
with the so-called digital illiteracy gap.
In conclusion, the universal promotion of reading in all its distinct forms
should be a priority for legislative implementation and for promotion in public,
national, regional, and international agendas. It must make up a cultural
standard accepted by communities, and recognized for its value and contribution
to social change. This is how policies are taken on, as a good and common
value, as an inheritance from parents to children, from governments to citizens.?
Guest Editor
Director
Biblioteca Nacional de Maestros
Argentina
*The ideas, thoughts, and opinions expressed are not necessarily of the OAS nor of its member states. The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors.
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