Reading for Pleasure 2024

The Reading for Pleasure Conference started in 2024 as a natural extension of the five year Reading for Pleasure pilot initiative that is being carried out in Dubai by the Emirates Literature Foundation. With the aim of fostering a love of reading for pleasure amongst children, the initiative supports the triangle of education – children, educators and parents – to ensure that children have access to a choice of books that are age and culturally appropriate in both Arabic and English. All professional development and parental engagement is carried out in both languages and there is a strong emphasis on protecting mother tongue, in particular, Arabic language.

Key Speakers

HE Dr Sultan Al Neyadi

Minster of Youth, Astronaut

Bassem Saad

Queen Rania Foundation, Jordan

Nikki Gamble

Children’s Literature Specialist

Dr Rana Dajani

Founder of ‘We Love Reading’

Professor Kevin Paterson

Experimental Psychology, Leicester University

Conference Stats Overview

The inaugural conference was held in May 2024 with the aims:

• Empower and motivate educators to integrate reading into the curriculum.
• Give students the opportunity to be creative and share their opinions.
• Establish and develop local and international communication channels.
• Provide parents with a toolkit to select books and encourage reading.
• Promote optimal reading practices in schools, with a particular regional focus on Arabic and English languages.
• A collection of research, best practices, case studies, and information is created to support our research and facilitate positive changes in educational policy.
• An open and beneficial dialogue is provided for librarians to facilitate collection development and the construction of more accessible and suitable learning resources.