Innovating educational space: How deliberate design can revitalize our school libraries and learning
Reading the world: Reading and identity practices in the context of globalization
This paper examines scholarship and empirical work on the use of multicultural literature in the English Language Arts classroom in the U.S. in the context of globalization. Studies in the U.S. tend to focus on diversity within the nation to the neglect of diversity beyond the States. Beyond multicultural perspectives as it is framed in the U.S. context, a global/local perspective that recognizes diversity within and beyond the nation is a more relevant construct for examining the literature curriculum in this globalized postmodernity.
Reading the word and the world: Critically and culturally reflexive conversations in the LangLit classroom
Reading does not merely consist of decoding the written word or language; rather, it is preceded and intertwined with knowledge of the world. Language and reality are dynamically interconnected. The understanding attained by a critical reading of a text implies perceiving the relationship between text and context. (Freire & Macedo, 1987, p. 29)
This chapter discusses how literature can be used in the langlit classroom towards learning about language and the world. Literary texts are rich sources for conversations about culturally relevant issues (Applebee, 1996), and if well-chosen, can become discursive spaces for thinking and talking about what is critical and meaningful in today’s world. I argue that literary texts are rich sources for learning how to read the word and the world (Freire, 1991; Freire & Macedo, 1987), and that it is important to teach students to read in what I term a critically and culturally reflexive manner. I then use Tan Hwee Hwee’s (2007) Mid-Autumn, a short story from Island Voices: A Collection of Short Stories from Singapore (Poon & Sim, 2007) to illustrate how awareness of language and worldviews can provide a framework for thinking about the use of literature in the language classroom.
Parental capital and children’s reading habits: A case study of two contrasting high- and low-income families
Leisure reading is associated with many advantages such as improving language skills and academic achievement, developing emotional intelligence and supporting social mobility. Children’s dispositions to read are shaped by instrumental and social factors, and the home reading environment is an important factor that encourages the development of leisure reading habits. This study examines how parental cultural capital, in the form of parents’ educational qualifications,identification as readers and ability to provide their children with resources (e.g., books, comfortable reading environments, devices and subscriptions for reading) support children’s development of positive reading habits.
Envisioning the school library of the future: A 21st century framework
The school library is the untapped potential for amplifying equitable 21st century learning and more knowledge is required to understand how school libraries continue to be relevant and vital for 21st century learning. A review of the literature (between 2005 and 2015) was conducted on the role of school libraries for 21st century learning as preparation for the Building a Reading Culture study and resulted in the 21st Century School Library Framework to guide our work on school libraries. The five key roles of a 21st century school library are to support reading, research, collaboration, studying and doing. The report details how a future-ready school library can support these different ways of learning.
This report updates the literature review with project findings and current research from 2016 to 2018. For more details about the study, please refer to our project website (https://www.readingculturesg.org/).
A mixed-methods study of the leisure reading habits of preservice teachers
Reading habits and preferences are invaluable in fostering literacy instruction. Although there is considerable research on the importance of leisure reading for students, there remains room to explore its relevance among teachers and its application to the classroom context. This paper seeks to explore the attitudes, beliefs and habits of leisure reading among preservice teachers, and how their perceptions of leisure reading influence their teaching strategies and prioritization of leisure reading within the classroom. 8 semistructured qualitative interviews were administered to pre-service teachers, alongside 102 quantitative questionnaires and Author Recognition Tests to measure the extent of their print exposure. Findings identified most as prolific readers, unanimously agreeing on the importance of leisure reading. However, only a handful of pre-service teachers were familiar with book series popular among students, and some remarked on negative reading experiences. Implications from the study include developing professional knowledge of extensive reading, reconsidering current reading programmes for greater effectiveness and placing more emphasis on young adult literature titles.