Sow the love of reading in young people with perseverance

MSc. Huynh Nhi believes that reading books creates for readers a rich and abundant subconscious language capital. (Photo: NVCC)

MSc. Huynh Nhi, Literature teacher, Hoa Ninh High School (Long Ho district, Vinh Long ), founder of the reading room - book library at home "Sweet Tomato" shared with The Gioi and Viet Nam Newspaper on the occasion of Vietnam Book and Reading Culture Day (April 21).

Teacher Huynh Nhi is also the co-founder of Mien Vuon Library, where students of Hoa Ninh School participate in the “Touching Books” program once a month. During each “Touching Books” session, Ms. Nhi connects authors and speakers to inspire reading for students in this riverside commune, becoming a model for many localities to exchange and apply.

According to Ms. Nhi, the school currently has “Library Reading Periods” and “Library Classes”. This is a school-wide policy, in all subjects, but the priority is still Literature. The remaining subjects will be distributed sporadically, with the hope of helping students form the habit of self-studying in the library.

The school’s motto is to instill in students a love of books and teach them how to read. In addition, some people who often read books also organize “book experience” sessions to stimulate students’ interest in books.

In those experience sessions, teachers often organize meetings, creating an environment for students to interact with book authors, or people who can inspire them to read, exchange and share with them in some necessary areas to equip them with skills to solve difficulties in the learning process, even in future orientation. At the same time, Ms. Nhi's Literature Group also organizes additional "book touching" sessions, helping students to interact, learn, share experiences with each other, introduce and discuss interesting books that they love or are reading.

Ms. Huynh Nhi's "Sweet Tomato" library attracts young readers. (Photo: NVCC)

Reading, perhaps the first thing is we need to choose the right type of book?

Reading must first bring joy, of course each person defines joy differently, but a book must definitely arouse interest in it for people to read. Then, reading is to find solutions to problems and difficulties in life, that is, to make readers feel that their thinking is upgraded, feel shared, and care about the problems they encounter.

So, depending on the purpose of reading, we will have suitable book genres and titles. For example, for entertainment, I will find fun books for you, they do not need to be too complicated; if to overcome difficulties, depending on each difficulty, I will introduce appropriate books... Therefore, in my opinion, determining the reading age, needs, and reading goals is very important to stimulate the development of reading culture.

The "book touching" activity that she came up with the idea for and carried out nearly 20 times seems to attract students?

This activity helps students experience expanding their contact space, approaching people with good professional qualifications, so that in addition to sharing, they also contribute to helping students orient and support them in solving their problems.

For me, this activity is quite profound for reading culture. To be able to organize a “book touching” session, normally the school will conduct it once a month, selecting a topic book for students to read in advance, preparing the content and the school will also find a speaker suitable for that topic so that it can easily exchange with the students.

Speakers are usually friends of teachers, or through acquaintances to ask for help. In fact, the school does not have much budget to invite big speakers. This is also a community activity, so most of the invited speakers are friends who share the same dedication as well as promote the spirit of community development, they often enthusiastically support this activity of the school.

“Touching books” also takes place in many forms to avoid boredom for the children. For example, in some sessions, the speaker will stand above and talk about specific content and then the children will ask questions; in other sessions, the children will be organized in the form of a “living library” or “human library”, meaning that the children will be divided into small groups of about 5-6 people with each speaker, they will directly share their stories and the speaker will respond with similar experiences, helping to answer the children’s questions…

Ms. Nhi in a session sharing experiences in instilling a love of reading in students. (Photo: NVCC)

As for your home library, I think this is also a pretty good model of reading culture?

This small library is a combination of many factors. First of all, it started from my personal passion for books and I already had a large source of books. Then, from organizing reading for students, the community supported more and more books.

In fact, my home library mainly serves young children, mainly preschool and elementary school children, because I also have a small child. After the child grew up a little, these books began to be no longer suitable, and I could not let them go to waste, so I thought of setting up a library to share with other young readers who do not have the opportunity to read.

At the beginning, I also had many advantages because the community actively supported and contributed many books, so from there I also had a rich and diverse source of books. Besides, in the process of teaching and approaching a variety of parents, with sharing about many situations of their children, such as being affected by modern social issues, leading to difficulties in language, concentration, or addiction to mobile phones. They also expressed concerns and wanted to find solutions to overcome.

"Books are a means to serve our lives. Therefore, we must find a way to convey the content we have read and apply it to our lives. Everyone knows that living a good life is very necessary, but transforming theory into action is still a process. So, if we are readers, love books and understand the importance and value of books, let's actively and boldly transform those values ​​into practical daily actions."

In light of that, I also advise parents to encourage their children to read books, because reading helps to limit negative effects from external influences. Combining many factors with the agreement of parents to open a library at home, bringing children to learn how to read books, creating a healthy living space for them, such a library was established.

It can be said that the library or reading room at home comes from what we have and from the needs of society, from the love we have for children, to the healing of children who are in adulthood and are affected by many negative impacts of society.

My reading room is called Sweet Tomato, which is actually the title of a book published by the Vietnamese Women's Publishing House. The book is about a boy whose mother was only 13 years old when she made a mistake, so they called each other sister instead of mother and son. Later, when the boy grew up and encountered life, he had to teach his mother in return, while finding ways to make a living to grow up and accompany his mother.

In my opinion, it is a very humane work, evoking many beautiful values ​​in life, most importantly, all the characters in the book have flaws but at the same time also have their own beauty, which if we realize, we will have a better way to operate life. Therefore, I decided to name the book room, or library at home Sweet Tomato.

Currently, I have about 1,500 books for children from preschool to elementary school, some for teenagers. For books for adults, we classify them separately and do not have specific statistics.

Sow the love of reading in young people with perseverance. (Photo: NVCC)

Besides the books with selected content, what other secrets help you attract young people to the library and access books?

In fact, the content of the book is already a great attraction, then we also need to pay attention to the instructor factor, this is also quite important. Because the instructor is like a catalyst, helping children feel comfortable, accept interaction and become more and more active with reading.

“Reading books gives each person a rich and abundant subconscious language capital. Therefore, the reader's ability to think and communicate in language will be developed very well. When your language is good, it will be a means and advantage for a person to dominate many aspects of life."

For all needs in life, not only children, but also adults want to be comfortable and loved in safety. Therefore, the instructor should create a safe environment, where children feel comfortable and interact socially with love.

These are very basic human needs, as Maslow's hierarchy of needs - a psychological model representing common human behaviors and psychology according to the 5-level model of the pyramid has described very clearly. Specifically, an environment with all the elements: safety, interaction, social connection, love, people living in it will achieve happiness, excitement and always want to reside in that environment.

So, besides choosing the right books for my children, I will create for them a truly safe reading environment, with connections and interactions with genuine love. It is not buying candy for children, or coaxing them with sweet words, that is considered love. Instead, contacting and talking to children, especially in today's era, is the most practical thing that represents love, because in fact, children today rarely talk and share with their parents, especially when they are under pressure when academic achievements are imposed.

When coming to the reading room, children can talk and share frankly what they are confused about or what they want. For example, when I introduce a book to a child and ask them to summarize its content after reading it, if they refuse and think they cannot do it, instead of forcing them, I will ask them to discuss the content they are wondering about or want to share with me if there is any.

Doing so will create an environment for children to interact and develop step by step without imposing a certain pattern, that reading means knowing this, knowing how to do that... That comfort, safety and being understood is the foundation for children to develop best, in which being understood is the key for children to find and choose a place to read books.

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/gioi-tinh-yeu-doc-sach-cho-nguoi-tre-bang-su-kien-tri-311734.html