Loh Chin Ee

In this paper, I examine how a group of Singaporean adolescent boys in an elite all-boys school constructed their identities as flexible literate citizens through their reading practices both in and out of school in the context of a globalized world. These boys demonstrated their flexibility through their abilities to make cultural crossings across story worlds and social worlds in their readings in and out of school. In addition, they were competent readers who were familiar with popular as well as school-chosen texts. An important aspect of their flexible literacy was their ability to make tactical readings, that is, to resist dominant institutional mode of readings while conforming to institutional standards through their written and oral work in school. Tactical reading also includes the ability to read different texts for different purposes, a disposition that these boys exercised to their schooling advantage. Their flexibility was a form of power that allowed them to plug into global notions of literacy in their localized context and served as a form of cultural and intercultural capital for national and global markets. Their acquisition of dispositions as flexible literate citizens are in part influenced by class, which provided them with an invisible network of resources suitable for acquiring reading as an out-of-school and school habit. I conclude by suggesting that it is important to acknowledge class as a contributing factor in the teaching and learning of literature in order to formulate the role of literature as relevant to all students in the Singapore context.

This case study is part of a larger study, the National Study of Writing Instruction. Through the examination of the written work and interview data of two 12th grade High School English students from two different classes in the same school, I seek to paint a picture of the kinds of writing the students do in their English classrooms, and what the writing reveals about what teachers value and what students learn in particular classrooms. The analysis reveals how teachers use writing as a learning tool to shape students’ knowledge of particular ways of thinking and knowing within and about the discipline. Additionally, it shows how they inculcate students into discipline-specific ways of writing in each particular classroom. Teachers in both classes taught students to write in line with their idea of “good” writing within the context of the discipline, school policy, and high stakes testing. I argue that the teachers’ awareness of their own expectations, the potential of a task and student expectations will allow for more deliberate design of written tasks that encourage general and discipline-specific learning.

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.

This study examines how one teacher implemented the study of a multicultural literary text in a rural 9th grade English Language Arts classroom. Specifically, it examines the kinds of classrooms conversations that arose as a result of the study of Red Scarf Girl (1997), a memoir set during the Cultural Revolution in China. The findings show that the choice of a culturally distant text from another nation encouraged conversations about what it meant to be an American, and provided potential discursive spaces for discussion about self, nation, and world. However, there were also tendencies towards non-critical readings and thinking in problematic binaries. Implications for rethinking multicultural literature to include conversations about self, nation, and world are discussed. In thinking about text choice, I suggest that we need to begin to think about students both as Americans and global citizens in order to bring culturally relevant conversations into the classroom.

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/).

Students need to prepare for 21st century literacies and skills of collaboration, research and lifelong learning to be ready for future life and work, and the school library is often overlooked as a potential space for facilitation of future-ready learning. This case study examines through how Design Thinking can be used to understand the reading and learning needs of adolescent students in one secondary school in order to provide insights to improve their school library. Through the use of observational data, interviews and journey maps, the researchers track the reading and learning habits of two secondary school students. Specifically, the journey mapping process allowed the researchers to better understand the students’ reading and learning needs in terms of physical and technological requirements. The findings demonstrate the vital role technology plays in meeting the students’ learning needs through providing avenues for research and online collaboration. School libraries, supported with technology can position its relevance in the 21st century school such as setting up an online library system, positioning itself as a research library and by expanding its resources to meet the needs of the school.

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.