Mrs Farida Ladipo-Ajayi, who is a well known reading culture promoter and the Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bookworm Café, has reiterated the need for parents all over the world to make reading a model and culture for academic success of their children.
She made this statement on Wednesday in Lagos.
She said that such culture would provide a good background for children to see and imitate reading as a way of life rather than seeing it as old fashioned.
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Mrs Farida Ladipo-Ajayi also expressed displeasure, saying that most parents were no longer reading, which had extended to their children and became a setback for the young ones.
”As adults, it is expected of us to impact on children positively in reading/learning as they easily learn and do what they see us doing, even without instructing them.
“Parents in particular must set aside a time to read and, if possible, with the children because reading helps to develop their brain, boost their confidence and intelligence.
“They are more at advantage in their studies and have higher chances of doing well and above their peers in all facets of formal education,” she added.
The Bookworm Cafe CEO advised that all hands must be on deck to encourage and make quality books available and accessible to the children in order to keep them on track.
According to her, the Cafe visits schools to interact with students and further check books in their libraries towards improving children’s bookstores, libraries and book clubs.
“As the children progress in age and class, they need to be given access to good books, from school library to home library, in order to keep reading alive.
“We interact with children and find out what kind of support they need to read and enjoy reading, reasons they’re not having the books and how we can make these books accessible to them,” she added.
She, therefore, called on corporate organisations, stakeholders and individuals to beam their search light to the book cafe whereby programmes could be organised to bring children together for more sensitisation.
According to her, we can have events such as book festivals for children and publishers by Banks/others just as they are doing for sports, fashion and food to hype reading.