By Perla Lena/PNA
ILOILO CITY — On World Read Aloud Day, parents are reminded to set an example to help develop their children’s love for reading.
“The whole world campaigns for reading. It’s not only here but the whole world. We plea especially to our parents: as much as possible limit and stop your kids from using gadgets,” Marion Aguirre, head of the Iloilo City Public Library Division, said in an interview Friday.
Children are getting more tech-savvy, but they do not know how to spell because shortcuts are used in texting, Aguirre said, adding that eventually, the children’s vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar would suffer.
She urged parents to limit, if not stop, their kids from using gadgets, which makes them exposed to social media.
Eireen Manikan, head of the Iloilo City Government’s “Pag-ulikid” program, said reading “teaches us, brings us to places we have never been and develops creativity and imagination.”
“We have to read so that we will learn many things every day,” she said.
At 10 a.m. Friday, some 50 pupils from the Montes I Elementary School joined other schools nationwide in reading aloud through live streaming at the Ker and Company Building,
Reading clinician JD Precious Lagarto led the story reading during the live streaming. She also taught the participants how to read properly.
Iloilo City was chosen by the National Library to represent the Visayas region in the simultaneous reading activity, Aguirre said.
A documentation of the event will be sent to the LitWorld in New York, a non-profit literacy organization founded by Pam Allyn in 2007.
Aguirre said Allyn spent time in Kenya, where she taught children how to read and write.
Friday’s observance of World Read Aloud Day started with the reading of three short stories led by pupils Leo Romer Alminaza Jr., Janamay Calibre, and Remia Regalado from the City Mayor’s Office.
Aguirre said the campaign for love for reading does not end Friday; instead it has to be sustained.
“We have plenty of projects that campaign for reading and to encourage children to visit libraries,” she said.
