Mum Reads: Celebrate National Reading Month With Adarna House + The Gateway Gallery

Do you love reading and want to teach your children to do the same?

The Gateway Gallery, managed by the J. Amado Araneta Foundation {JAAF} ~ the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of the Araneta Group, strongly believes in the importance of reading and literacy. In June 12 this year, the Gallery unveiled its “Liwanag Reading Corner”, a 7-piece mobile wooden sculpture inspired by the story of the Lamp and the Moth told by Teodora Alonzo to the young boy Jose Rizal. This one-of-a-kind art piece aims to promote our Filipino heritage and encourage reading by showcasing select books on Philippine history, culture and arts for all ages.

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Gateway Gallery Program in a nutshell

Reading has insurmountable benefits that cannot be neglected. It fosters individual growth that can spur national development. Encouragingly, the Philippines do not log behind on basic literacy. In 2013, 96.5 percent of 74 million Filipinos 10 years old and over were basically literate. Basic or simple literacy – is the ability of a person to read and write with understanding a simple message in any language or dialect. Furthermore, nine out of every ten Filipinos 10 to 64 years were functionally literate. Functional literacy includes not only reading and writing but also numeracy skills. The skills must be sufficiently advanced to enable the individual to participate fully and efficiently in activities commonly occurring in his life situation that require a reasonable capability of communicating by written language. A functional literate person is one who can at least read, write, compute and/or comprehend. Also, persons who graduated from high school or completed higher level of education are classified as functionally literate.

Though the statistics look good, the number significantly drops when comprehension or higher level of literacy is considered. Only 5 out of 10 elementary graduates can read, write, compute and comprehend. While this number improves as the students reach high school, only about 60% of the population actually reaches high school thus, attaining this level of literacy. Employment/ looking for work {28.8%}, Family income not sufficient to send child to school {15.7}, and lack of personal interest {14.9} are top 3 reasons for not attending school/ dropping out.

PROGRAM OBJECTIVE

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