NCRRD Holds National Conference to Revive Reading Culture in Nigeria

The Nigeria Centre for Reading Research and Development yesterday commenced a four-day long national conference on children’s books and the teaching of early grade reading in Nigeria. The conference, holding at Dangote Business School, Bayero University Kano, was meant to stimulate discussions and evolve national policies and effective programmes that would promote the teaching of reading in the country, especially in the early grade. 

NCRRD Director Professor Isma’ila A. Tsiga said lack of enough culturally relevant literature for the early grade was responsible for the declining culture of reading in the country, stressing that the conference would provide an avenue for rigorous debate on how to improve the teaching of reading in the colleges of education and the universities.

The Vice Chancellor, Bayero University, Prof. Muhammad Yahuza Bello, called for the support of teacher training institutions in planning the centre’s various training programmes in both English and indigenous Nigerian languages. Dr Nicole Patton Terry of Florida Centre for Reading Research, Florida State University, USA, emphasized the need for a multidimensional approach involving various stakeholders as well as deploying necessary resources to deal with reading deficiencies in early grades.