Reading in mother tongue languages is important as it connects Singaporeans to their culture. It also gives Singaporeans a linguistic edge in bilingualism.
To help encourage reading in mother tongue languages, NLB is tapping on the community for expertise on Chinese, Malay and Tamil to enhance its language collections and suite of reading programmes. NLB has also doubled the number of mother tongue reading clubs for children aged 4 to 10 years from 5 pilot clubs in 2015 to 10 clubs in 2016. Further, NLB is partnering organisations like the media to provide opportunities for the community to hone their mother tongue language skills. For instance, journalists from Lianhe Zaobao and Lianhe Wanbao are currently hosting a current affairs interest group (“陪你看报纸”) at Toa Payoh Public Library.