six years of reading excellence
iRead celebrates a culture of learning, thinking
2020 may have put a damper on some activities, but reading, learning, and thinking aren't among them. The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture brings in leaders and teachers from across the Kingdom to celebrate the sixth iRead recognition ceremony
Several young Saudis among were honored Saturday at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) at the closing iRead ceremonies in Dhahran.
Winners included:
- Khadija Al Salem - Reader of the Year for elementary and intermediate stage
- Jinan Nehme - Reader of the Year for high school
- Khalid Al-Fifi - Reader of the Year for university student
- Lian Al-Ghamdi - Reader of the Year for audience voting selection
- Shaima Al-Kathiri - Winner in the Content Creator track
- Noura Al-Qahtani, Asma Al-Madhi, and Omar Al-Zahrani — Reading Ambassadors track.
The winners were chosen from a field of more than 13,300 participants this year, with 10 being chosen as finalists in each division. The selection of the 10 finalists for the final stage of the competition was based on the results of the jury that was held earlier in the ceremony that judged multiple and specific criteria and mechanisms for nomination. The closing ceremony included a committee consisting of speakers, referees, and invited guests from outside Ithra listening to participants present their texts in front of the public.
The iRead program seeks to instill a love of knowledge, science, creative thinking skills, and artistic and cultural appreciation, and is designed to spread the culture of reading among Saudi and Arab youth by presenting specific cultural programs that contribute to raising awareness in the belief in the importance of reading as one of the most important means of enriching knowledge for future generations and to inculcate the concepts of literacy, reading, and cultural production written in the Arabic language to achieve the goal of inspiring and developing 1 million young men and women by 2030.
In a five-minute show for each participant, the names of seven winners were announced by the jury. An additional "people's choice" winner was announced, with participants voting electronically.
This year marked the sixth edition of iRead and included an enrichment forum devoted to the upper and middle school levels, and a second enrichment forum devoted to secondary and university levels. Both forums focused on aspects of reading creative writing, research methodology, and critical thinking.
