Loh, Chin Ee

Leisure reading has been consistently shown to be closely related to children's success during school years and beyond (Iyengar & Ball, 2007; Sullivan & Brown, 2015). Research has also shown that good reading habits can lead to better reading achievement (Clark & De Zoysa, 2011, PIRLS, 2006, 2011, 2016). In light of the proven benefits of leisure reading, language curricula in many education systems, including Singapore, are paying increasing attention to nurture children's love for reading, and large-scale national surveys have been carried out to understand how children practise and perceive reading. The bulk of extant research, however, fail to take account of the potential heterogeneity of participants' language backgrounds, instead focusing exclusively on English or on the schooling language of the research setting (e.g., Loh & Sun, 2018a; National Endowment for the Arts, 2007; Rutherford, Merga, & Singleton, 2018; Zasacka, 2014). Relatively little research has taken a holistic approach to examine bilingual children's reading habits and preferences in their two languages concurrently. Building on an ongoing SUG project, the proposed study aims to conduct a mixed methods study to better understand Singaporean bilingual children's reading habits and preferences in English and their respective Mother Tongue languages. Results from the survey will not only provide important and timely understanding of how bilingual children in Singapore practise leisure reading in their two languages, but also contribute to the knowledge base for designing and evaluating reading programmes as well as tracking down changes in bilingual children's reading habits and preferences.

With increased access to technologies for reading, more understanding is needed about how adolescents engage with print and digital reading across school and out-of-school contexts. In this study, mobile ethnography was used to document the everyday print and digital reading practices of adolescent girls from one all-girls’ school. They responded to real-time researcher prompts about their reading across various timings, locations, and devices over four days, and participated in photo-elicitation interviews. Findings showed that as students moved between locations, they also transited across devices, platforms, and formats, making use of different print and digital resources for varied ways of reading. Their ability to ‘style-shift’ flexibly across the boundaries of school and personal spaces, various devices and platforms allowed them to independently optimise reading as a resource for their everyday leisure, information seeking, and learning purposes. Insights, implications, and challenges for learning in a post-pandemic digital age are discussed.

In this article, Chin Ee Loh, Baoqi Sun, and Chan-Hoong Leong utilize a critical spatial perspective to examine how students from different socioeconomic statuses access reading resources at home, in school, and in the community. Using Geographic Information System (GIS) data, they evaluate the distribution of reading resources in Singapore by mapping out students’ physical distances to libraries and bookstores. They juxtapose the data against case studies of students and survey data from more than six thousand participants from six secondary schools in Singapore to understand their use of resources for reading. Findings show that while students may have equal access to reading resources in terms of access to public resources for books, home backgrounds significantly affect students’ actual access. The critical spatial approach of this study provides a new way to evaluate the efficacy and equity of resource distribution and access for twenty-first-century learning.

Long-term school absences during pandemic lockdowns may result in learning gains and losses much like the summer reading loss, but little is known about the actual effects of such lockdowns. This mixed-methods study examined changes in reading enjoyment, amount and resources in three groups of bilingual children—English-Chinese, English-Malay, and English-Tamil speaking children—during the COVID-19 lockdown in Singapore. Results reveal a lockdown reading gap between children’s stronger language (English) and weaker language (Chinese/Malay/Tamil). Within each language, results show differential reading gains and losses for children who enjoyed and did not enjoy reading in print and digital formats. Children’s reading enjoyment before the lockdown, changes in reading enjoyment and print reading amount during the lockdown in English and Chinese/Malay were significantly correlated. Children preferred print reading over reading digitally both before and during the lockdown, and devices were underutilized for reading purposes.

Given constant online access to information, critical news literacy, or the ability to access and critically evaluate the news, is essential for adolescents to learn about the world and obtain civic knowledge to participate as national and global citizens. Although there has been much research focusing on how youths critically read and produce media, less attention has been paid to the issue of access as an essential element of news literacy. Drawing on survey data (N = 5732) and focus group discussions (N = 67) with Singapore adolescents aged 13–17 years old, this study examines (1) whether adolescents access the news and if so, via what technologies, and (2) the factors that influence their news access. Findings show that adolescents prefer to read news online and that older adolescents (aged 15–17 years old) read more than younger adolescents (aged 13–14 years old). Factors shaping access to news include technological (portability, personalization, curation, and notifications), social (families, peers, and schools as sponsors), and personal factors (active seeking of news vs. incidental news exposure). Policymakers, scholars, and educators should consider the physical, social, and curatorial dimensions of news reading to implement policies and design practices to encourage news access and exposure. Educators can foster adolescents' motivation to read news by engaging them with news of interest to them, creating opportunities for them to receive the news through their smartphones and other devices, and developing their civic knowledge base.

This study investigated and compared family language policies (FLPs) from the perspectives of two groups of Singaporean bilingual children: 2,971 English-Chinese and 780 English-Malay children (aged 9–11 years). It also examined how different FLP components – namely, language beliefs, practices, and management – influenced their leisure reading enjoyment and reading amount. We found that although both groups of children attached equal importance to their two languages, their language practices tilted towards their stronger language, English. Both groups of children also reported different patterns of language management efforts at home. Regression analyses revealed differential effects of language beliefs, practices, and management on reading enjoyment and amount in the children’s two languages. For both groups and all languages, language beliefs explained the least amount of variance in reading enjoyment and amount compared to language practices and management. For English, language management accounted for more variance than language practices, whereas for the children’s weaker language (i.e., their ethnic language), both language management and language practices were significant predictors. Results emphasize the critical role of FLP in maintaining children’s ethnic languages. Therefore, it is imperative for parents, educators, and policymakers to identify and implement strategies to bolster language management and practices within the home and school environments.

Research on the gendered reading habits and preferences of boys and girls presents them as very different. This study focuses on the gendered reading habits and preferences of Singapore adolescent students (aged 12 to 17) to examine if such polarity exists in their reading habits. Drawing on survey data from 4830 adolescents in five secondary schools, the findings show that, while more girls enjoyed reading compared to boys, both boys and girls preferred to read for pleasure. Although there are some gendered differences in reading preferences, adolescents’ preferred reading materials differ less than often portrayed, with convergence in areas such as Adventure and Science Fiction and Fantasy. In the area of reading and technology, the findings suggest that girls read more online, reflecting their tendency to read more in print. More complex understanding of contemporary adolescent reading will allow educators, librarians and parents to better address adolescent reading needs.