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Then reading to learn, Now learning to read

20 November 2007CE | 10 Dhul-Qadah 1428AH

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[Why don’t we read? By Wajeha Al-Huwaider/Al-Watan, Published on 26 August 2002, Arabnews.com]

Several years ago when I was trying to get a job here, I discovered that what I had studied for my master’s degree was a largely unknown subject. Consequently I found it hard to explain what was meant by Reading Management which is, basically strategies and means to help people understand what they read. There are people who refuse to read not because they don’t want to read but because of some impairment in their ability to read, dyslexia being a common one.

One of my professors in fact compared the pain of dyslexia to that of someone compelled to wear a shoe that is too small and walk non-stop for hours. According to a famous educational scientist, man is by nature inquisitive and hungry for knowledge. A baby learns about the external world by tasting and touching. Gradually other senses come into play, opening new horizons which lead to more learning. As the baby grows, he or she learns that reading is the only key to the bottomless sea of knowledge. All of us therefore strive hard to learn to read; some people, unfortunately cannot develop the habit of reading for reasons beyond their control.

Two years ago I did a study on reading habits at a women’s training center. The results were amazing. More than 41 percent of the women during their training never borrowed books from the library and 70 percent read only textbooks and other assigned material. I learned also that 66 percent of the readers read only general subjects in women’s magazines though 71.6 percent of the women said they believed that reading was for pleasure.

I will never forget the comment of an American colleague after reading my findings; she said that at one time during their history, the Arabs were reading to learn but in the present day, they were simply learning to read. I was further shocked by a recent Lebanese newspaper report that Arabs read an average of seven minutes in a year. There is no mistake — this is not a daily, weekly or monthly average but the time spent reading in one full year. Not all of them could possibly be suffering from dyslexia which afflicts only 4 to 10 percent in any society. The problem is further worsened by 65 million illiterate women in the Arab world. What is the excuse for such ignorance and illiteracy among a people whose first revealed religious command was “Read”?

I feel as if my degree is irrelevant in such a situation. Is it reasonable to teach a people who do not know about books and who have in fact abandoned them? The cause of the flight of these people from books needs another detailed study. I find the view of one Arab writer worthy of attention; he said the strongest love story in human history is man’s passion for books. It is an eternal love.

Each generation strengthens and enriches it and makes the pleasure of reading superior to all others. In fact the passion for books surpasses all other passions as it springs from the instinct to satisfy curiosity. This curiosity is motivated by a sincere desire to create a better life on earth.

(Wajeha Al-Huwaider is a program and evaluation analyst at Aramco. She has an MA in Reading Management from George Washington University.)

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Tags: dua, Education, History, Life, Love, time

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