Edward Zigler Center Child Development & Social Policy / Spring 2013 Lecture Series: "We Love Reading: A Community-Based Model to Advance Early Childhood Development in Jordan"

Reading is essential to the development of a child's personality, imagination, and cognitive skills. Children of the Arab world do not read.   This negatively impacts the education system and economic output of the region. Research has shown that a key issue in fostering the love of reading is being read to.   Therefore, we have developed an innovative model that provides a practical, cost efficient, sustainable and grassroots approach that involves women and the community to increase reading levels among children ages 4-10 by focusing on the read aloud experience to plant the love of reading. 

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Reading is essential to the development of a child's personality, imagination, and cognitive skills. Children of the Arab world do not read.   This negatively impacts the education system and economic output of the region. Research has shown that a key issue in fostering the love of reading is being read to.   Therefore, we have developed an innovative model that provides a practical, cost efficient, sustainable and grassroots approach that involves women and the community to increase reading levels among children ages 4-10 by focusing on the read aloud experience to plant the love of reading.    

The We Love Reading (WLR) program constitutes training local women to hold read aloud sessions in a public space (the mosque) in their neighbourhoods where books are read aloud to children on a routine basis. We call this scenario a “library”. In addition to promoting the experience of reading, the WLR program: empowers women readers to become leaders in their communities, builds ownership in the children and community members and together with local NGOs serves as a platform for raising awareness on issues such as health and environment. 

The WLR program has tangible outcomes to transform, in a short period of time, a whole generation of children into readers who love, enjoy, and respect books through the establishment of a library in every neighborhood in the Arab world, whose impact on the development of society is immeasurable.  WLR has spread throughout the Arab world and internationally to Turkey, Germany, Mexico, Uganda and Malaysia.

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Rana Dajani, Ph.D. in molecular biology, University of Iowa, USA 2005; a Fulbright alumnus, an Assistant Professor and former Director of the center of studies at the Hashemite University, Jordan; and Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale Genetics Department/Yale Stem Cell Center on a Fulbright research scholarship.

Her research focuses on genome-wide association studies concerning diabetes and cancer in ethnic populations in Jordan

Dr. Dajani was the organizer of the fourth scientific research conference on cancer in Jordan; consultant to the higher council for science and technology in Jordan and to the Fetzer institute USA. She has written in Science and Nature about Science in the Arab world. She was a speaker at the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship symposium at the University of Cambridge and at the British Council ‘belief in dialogue’ conference.

In terms of education, she has been appointed a Higher Education Reform Expert by the TEMPUS office, Jordan, founder of the center for service learning at the Hashemite University, advocate of teaching using problem based learning, novel reading and drama, established a network for women mentors and mentees, speaker at TEDxDeadsea.

On the broader horizon, Dr. Dajani has developed a community-based model and philosophy “We love reading (WLR)” to encourage children to read for pleasure which received the Synergos award for Arab world social innovators 2009, a membership to the Clinton Global Initiative 2010, and a place in the book “Innovation in education”, funded by Qatar foundation.  WLR has spread throughout Jordan, the Arab world and internationally reaching Turkey, Mexico, Thailand, Uganda and Azerbaijan.

Dr. Dajani in the media: Huffington post, Forbes, USA Today, Washington post, Al Jazeera, VOA, Chronicles of higher education, the Guardian and Reuters.

Dr. Dajani is married with four children.

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The Edward Zigler Center on Child Development and Social Policy is a platform for speakers from academia, levels of government, community organizations, service agencies, the business world and the media to discuss their work and its policy implications.