FEATURE

TEXT_Kiki Bai　PHOTOS_Kiki Bai　ILLUSTRATOR_CHAN HO CHENG

A City of Reading welcomes books as our companions. As the Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi once indicated, “The art of reading is to follow an orderly and progressive path. Engaging in extensive reading leads to profound contemplation”. This year, the Public Library of the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) has targeted to build a “City of Reading” and have rolled out diverse programmes tailored to different age groups. The programme includes “Toddler Reading Reward Programme”, “Fun Family Reading”, “Student Fun Reading Award Scheme”, and “Fun Reading School Commendation Scheme”, which together seek to raise the reading interest among toddlers and teenagers. Furthermore, the “Baby Book Club ─ the Parent-Child Space of Infants and Toddlers” has been set up to create a warm and cozy environment for parents and children to share reading together, with a view of connecting citizens and reading through various means, fostering an engaging reading atmosphere.

The lifelong reading begins in early childhood. The Public Library of the Cultural Affairs Bureau has launched “Toddler Reading Reward Programme”, providing eligible toddlers under 24 months with a reading pack, which contains reading resources for parent-child shared reading together. The programme is warmly welcome by families. One parent, Mel Cheong, has taken her son to the library and explored the trove of wisdom inside the “reading pack”, which has brought immense joy and fun to their family time.

Mel Cheong thinks that shared reading is instrumental to helping children explore new things.

Mel Cheong expressed that she loves bringing her son to a library and find suitable books for him in her leisure time. However, with the abundance of children’s books, sometimes it can be too overwhelming to make the right choice for their reading. The “reading pack” that she recently received not only helps her child find age-appropriate books, the reading materials also align perfectly with her son’s cognitive abilities. It is a wonderful “toolkit” for her to engage in shared reading with her child. Cheong also shared that she would read and digest the content before sharing it with her son. During this process, she will also explore how to increase various enjoyable elements. For instance, they will approach the “reading pack” as if they are unwrapping a gift that invited them to delve into the “treasure” within, thus captivating his attention.

Mel Cheong adds fun to the opening of the "reading pack" by engaging in a "treasure hunt" with her son.

Shared reading has become a unique period of time for Cheong and her child, creating sweet memories of their growth together. She added, “For example, there is a book in the reading pack about daily necessities. Whenever my child sees different objects in the book, he babbles with enthusiasm, and it is truly fascinating. When we come across familiar food in the book, we will remind him that, ‘We’ve just had that together’. By sharing with him the trivals that we have experienced, it greatly enhances his understanding of things and language skills, contributing to his overall development.”

Since its establishment in 2015, Taipa Library has not only provided a reading experience for all age groups but has also dedicated facilities for infants, toddlers, and their parents, including child-friendly toilets, nursing rooms, and baby stroller parking areas. These facilities aim to provide a safe and beautiful reading space for parent-child to shared reading. In order to continuously enhance the parent-child reading experience, this year, Taipa Library has added the “Baby Book Club ─ the Parent-Child Space of Infants and Toddlers,” specifically designed for babies aged 0 to 18 months and their parents. From the spatial layout to the hardware and software facilities, everything has been revamped to welcome young readers, accompanying their growth. Today, let us follow the footsteps of this article and explore the attractive parent-child interactive elements in this space!

Taipa Library has added the “Baby Book Club ─ the Parent-Child Space of Infants and Toddlers” this year.

Babies crawl with excitement inside the “Baby Book Club.”

Upon entering the “Baby Book Club” at Taipa Library, the journalist is immediately drawn by the soft and cushiony texture of the floor mat. Mindful of the growth and developmental needs of infants and toddlers, the floor of the "Baby Book Club" is covered with a soft mat. This design caters to children’s innate inclination to sit, lie down, and crawl around freely. Not only is it conducive to organizing parent-child interactive activities, but also allows babies during the crawling phase to “showcase their skills” in such a comfortable and secure environment.

Babies can’t wait to try out eagerly the amusing early educational devices!

The “Baby Book Club” is not only a play area for children but also equipped with a range of early education devices that support their growth. During the infant and toddler stage, children love exploring and learning their surroundings and objects with their hands, eyes, ears, and feet. The tactile and cognitive touch devices attached to the walls attract them to touch and move around, inspiring their understanding of the world.

The space also offers a variety of children’s books, including cloth books, interactive books, and picture books. The contents are so engaging and enjoyable that can guide children in their learning and fostering parent-child shared reading. They help children create a sense of familiarity with libraries and cultivate their lifelong love for books. With such a vibrant and diverse parent-child space, seize the opportunity this weekend and bring your kids to experience it!

Continuously striving to optimize the library's spatial layout, the newly created “Parent-Child Space of Infants and Toddlers” offers various types of reading activities at times, opening the door to diverse reading experiences. The picture book promotion activity 2023 for infants and toddlers, titled “Roaming with Picture Books for Infants and Toddlers” is one of the examples. It features workshops where instructors use different objects such as water, ribbons, fabric, and balls to recreate scenes from picture books, such as mountains, trees, and water. Through tactile and auditory experiences, the workshops take toddlers on imaginative journeys.

The workshops adopt interaction to make picture books “alive” as a medium for parent-child play.

Kamin Leong, the workshop instructor, pointed out that children’s reading habits and preferences are closely related to their age-specific physical and mental development and characteristics. Therefore, the series of activities are divided into different sessions respectively for children aged 6 to 18 months, 18 to 24 months, and 24 to 36 months to join. The aim is to inspire parents to provide more targeted teaching through picture books based on their children’s age characteristics. She further explained that “Children aged 6 to 18 months have just started sitting or walking and are full of curiosity about their surroundings. Therefore, we choose colorful picture books with simple plots for them. Children aged 18 to 24 months are intrigued by story characters and experiences, and they tend to “move around”. It is suitable to choose picture books with repetitive language and themes in relation to daily life when interacting with them. Children aged 24 to 36 months are experiencing relatively advanced language development and enter the stage of “questioning everything”. Therefore, in the workshops, we bring “questions” to the children, allowing them to engage with the storyline through answering and building confidence by analyzing the plot.”

Cindy Chow, also the workshop instructor, believed that shared reading of picture books plays a pivotal role in fostering parent-child language communication. Libraries, serving as hubs of knowledge exchange, offer opportunities for parents and children to participate in activities that will help the children understand from an early age that a library is a place to seek answers and a window that leads to a broader world.

One of the participants, Ms. Wong, believed that incorporating various sensory elements into the activities helps enrich the sensory experiences of infants and toddlers.

To further promote reading among the public, the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) and the Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) this year have collaboratively rolled out the “Fun Family Reading”. This activity aims to encourage parents and their children from kindergarten (K1) to primary 3 to visit the public libraries of the Cultural Affairs Bureau through carrying out parent-child missions. By accumulating reading mileage, families can join a lucky draw, thus integrating reading into their family life and fostering good reading habits among students!

Charlie Yang and her daughter redeem prizes with reading points.

On this day, Charlie Yang and her daughter stepped into a library and carefully selected their favourite books to accumulate points, bringing a more enriching experience to their reading journey. Yang pointed out that in order to cultivate her child’s reading habits and enhance independent thinking skills, she often accompanies her daughter to the library during their free time. They enjoy comfortable moments surrounded by books. After learning about the activity through promotional posters in the library, Yang believes that participating in the lucky draw through earning points not only increases their enthusiasm and motivation for reading but also helps them develop a reading habit when they accumulate points.

Charlie Yang affirms the activity in which her daughter is cultivating reading habits

The building of a knowledge treasure trove is based on developing reading habits over the years. The aim of redeeming prizes through accumulated reading mileage is to attract more citizens to enjoy the reading experience and collectively build a “City of Reading.” Yang and her daughter exchanged their reading mileage from completing reading tasks with tickets to “experience the bowling alley at the Youth Activities Centre of Bairro do Hipodromo". She agreed that the prize was very practical as it allowed them to engage in sports and spend more time together apart from reading. She said, “Overall, this activity leverages the benefits of reading as a medium and brings a lot of fun by earning points through participating in the lucky draw and redeeming prizes. We are actively participating in it, if there are similar activities in the future, we will be eager to learn more about them.”

School libraries serve as the bridgeheads in promoting reading among students and as incubation centres for cultivating a lifelong learning mindset. The IC and the DSEDJ have launched the “Student Fun Reading Award Scheme” and the “Fun Reading School Commendation Scheme” for the academic year 2023/2024. Starting from September this year, schools and students can participate in these schemes to promote a reading culture on campuses and receive rewards. The “Student Fun Reading Award Scheme” allows schools to establish their own reading incentive plans. The participating schools submit a list of outstanding reading students, who have earned reading points through their IC reader’s cards that record their visited hours in public libraries and borrowed books. The points can be redeemed with corresponding rewards, thus encouraging students to engage in both in-school and out-of-school reading and absorb knowledge. Schools that demonstrate active participation will receive commendations. As for the “Fun Reading School Commendation Scheme”, the organizers provide encouragement to schools that organize and implement reading activities through this scheme. Qualified schools will be awarded the “Fun Reading School Certification,” adding more literary charm to their campuses.

“Self-Service Holds Pickup Locker” combines the functions of reserving and borrowing books.

To facilitate students’ reservation and return of library items of the Public Library of the Cultural Affairs Bureau on campuses, the Public Library of the Cultural Affairs Bureau has set up the “Self-Service Holds Pickup Locker” in the first phase across six non-tertiary education schools in Macao. These schools include Chan Sui Ki Perpetual Help College, Hou Kong Middle School, Tong Nam - Secondary School, Pui Ching Middle School, Santa Rosa de Lima School - Chinese Section, and Seac Pai Van Public School. This aims to extend the public library services to the campuses.

The “Self-Service Holds Pickup Locker” combines the functions of borrowing and returning books. When students make a library book reservation, they have the option to choose the “Self-Service Holds Pickup Locker” located within their own school. Once they receive an SMS notification, they can scan the barcode on their reader’s card at the “Self-Service Holds Pickup Locker” to open the locker and retrieve the reserved books. The borrowing process is completed upon the book retrieval. Students can also return books through the same locker, making it convenient and efficient. This encourages students to engage in independent reading, supports their learning, and supplements their extracurricular knowledge, creating a favorable reading ambient within their literary campuses.

The “Self-Service Holds Pickup Locker” facilitates students’ borrowing of books from the Public Library of the Cultural Affairs Bureau.

Students can use the electronic screen to perform self-service functions such as borrowing, returning, searching, and renewing books.

By scanning the barcode on their public library reader's card at the locker, students can retrieve their reserved books there.