Media Ministry invited ReadAble and Reading Roots to share their community literacy outreach programmes in Jalan Kukoh and MacPherson respectively as part of Cru's Webinar series 'Tuesday Talks'. Held on 29 September, the registration and subsequent attendance (75 signed up, 43 turned up, with highest concurrent viewership of 37) affirmed our joint belief that many in Singapore are concerned with the increasing demand on our young for higher-level literacy skills, the decline in their reading capability and enjoyment, and therefore their capacity to reach their God-given potential. Such concerns being exacerbated in poorly resourced communities.

By enabling children to acquire comprehensive, foundational literacy skills they gain the confidence to read, write, speak and communicate well. This ultimately enables their communities to develop greater resilience to the challenges, struggles, and institutions that can, despite worthy efforts to the contrary, serve to reinforce inequality and social division. In particular, the ability to read well and enjoy the written word provides children with, as the UK report "A Society of Readers" suggests, the prospect of life-long resilience through greater emotional, psychological and intellectual capacities.

We hope that the attendees were inspired and, perhaps, challenged by the work of ReadAble and Reading Roots who were represented by Samantha Kwan and Angeline Lim respectively. We also heard from a volunteer who has served with both organisations, Karmen Wong, who shared her passion as a literacy teacher to needful families. Judging on the lively Q&A that followed we believe that other community initiatives in this field could be realised.

Literacy builds communities by empowering the young to communicate, understand, empathize and be more attentive to the people, issues, and events that they engage with every day. It is about allowing communities to be more resilient to the distracting nature of contemporary media messaging and, through nurturing a child’s imaginative capacity, helping their place to flourish and grow. It is about opening a child’s eyes to the wonder of the world God created and, in time, to seek the purpose of their life within it. Therefore, by empowering children from under-resourced communities and families to read well we are enabling them to participate more equitably and effectively to meet the information challenges of this world and their created potential. We hope to arrange further talks in this area, especially on nurturing the reading habit.

…developing literate and educated citizens that are prepared to engage in the work of helping their places flourish is a reasonable end toward which our [community advocates] should be moving in our engagement with our neighbours. Reading for the Common Good, C. Christopher Smith

Besides being a source of knowledge and learning, reading provides a gateway to help the child become aware, articulate and [imagine]. A good reader becomes an independent learner and thinker, capable of critical thinking and making sound decisions. Inculcated early, the reading habit will create a lifelong advantage for the child. For the love of reading: a compilation of best practices in Singapore schools (MOE). National Library Board

“All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.”
- Isaiah 54:13