It requires interest and love for books, wider acquaintance with literature, special knowledge about books and working with them, as well as skills and qualifications that help to fully use books.
By Tuliyeva Sarvinoz
Although the word “Mutolaa” means “reading” in Arabic, today it has a broader meaning than just reading a book. According to A. Umarov: ‘Mutolaa’ culture is a set of knowledge, norms, social phenomena and other attributes that represent a set of changes in the content and structural systems of the process, behavior and activities of social groups, associations and individuals aimed at obtaining general information.
At the same time, it is necessary to distinguish specialized information, which specifically forms the reading culture through educational systems, from general information of various directions and forms, which is acquired throughout a person’s life through various sources – books (fiction, scientific, educational, encyclopedias), mass media (newspapers, magazines, television, radio, etc.), modern information technologies (Internet, electronic newspapers, magazines, manuals, etc.), as well as individuals who directly communicate with the subject (
Professor E.I. Yoldoshev defines the concept of “Reading Culture” as follows: “Reading culture is a very broad concept, requiring interest and love for books, wider acquaintance with literature, special knowledge about books and working with them, as well as skills and qualifications that help to fully use books.”
The issue of educating the culture of information acquisition is a social, spiritual-enlightenment, nationwide problem. This is not a phenomenon limited to a certain period, but a spiritual need that a person learns throughout his life. The main place for educating the culture of information acquisition is information and library institutions. Information and library institutions, with their capabilities, not only help in the implementation of school programs and State Educational Standards, but also guide students towards independent learning. In educating the culture of information acquisition, it is important to establish school-family-library cooperation It is necessary to determine the main tasks of information and library institutions in fostering an information culture.
The school and parents have an extremely complex and responsible task in shaping children’s reading. For this, parents themselves must have high taste, be enlightened and knowledgeable. It is known that only when a child knows how to read a book, a book plays an important role in his spiritual life. For a child to be spiritually enriched, a book must direct him to spiritual, intellectual, and aesthetic growth. The initial impetus for this is the first book read to a child in the family, the second is when the child hears his father and mother reading and imagines the beauty of artistic images, and these first and second encounters with a book must be connected with all spheres of the child’s spiritual life in the later adolescence: work, play, music, children’s creativity, and must encompass all aspects of his life. Because it is difficult to imagine the life of a teenager without creative work, the world of fairy tales, fantasies, play, and music. If reading encompasses all of these, it will help him grow into a spiritually mature person, intelligent and capable of understanding the fundamental nature of life, trying to understand the contradictions of life. The means that shape such intelligence and enrich the spiritual world of a person are books and reading.
The most important thing in reading is to instill a love for books in the family, to teach them to take care of them. Not only scholars, but also many ordinary people take care of books. Our people have long said, “A book is dearer than anything else, and to kiss it on the forehead is a reward.” When parents visit the home museums of our great scholars and writers Oybek, Gafur Ghulam, Izzat Sultan, Mirzakalon Ismaili and others with their children, it becomes clear that there was nothing dearer to these people than books, that they took care of them, and that they read a lot. After all, the fact that our people cherish and respect books, store them on shelves that are not exposed to moisture, and spend their free time reading books is a testament to the great love they have for books.
The reader enriches the life he learned in the family with life events in the book, and his understanding of life, human qualities, goodness, values, and pride in the life of his descendants, love for the Motherland, loyalty to friends, respect, hard work, and patience improve. The greatest helper in this regard is fiction. In fiction, any event is expressed in artistic images, in an impressive form, so that a teenage reader can learn many qualities and become a spiritually rich person.
Read: Revival of Reading Culture: Back to Books
____________
Tuliyeva Sarvinoz, hailing from the Beruni district of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, graduated from the Tashkent State University of Uzbek Language and Literature named after Alisher Navoi, in 2023. She is winner of the Zulfiya State Prize (2019). She is author of the poetry books “Tinchlik qo‘shig’i”, “Haqiqat qiziman”, “Tong shu’lasi”, besides the creative collection “Nurli izlar”. About 100 creative works have been published in republican and foreign newspapers and magazines in Russia, Turkey, Germany, the USA, Kenya, and Great Britain. Currently, she is a teacher of native language and literature at the Shaykhontohur District Polytechnic of Tashkent.
