Commentary: How parents, schools can help Singaporean kids to derive joy from reading
The recent Progress in International Reading Literacy Study results reported that Singapore primary school students are top in reading and comprehension skills when compared to the other 56 education systems that took part in the study.
While many of us turned to reading books during our leisure time in days gone by, our students growing up today have access to a smorgasbord of options, many of them right at their fingertips, on their mobile devices. Perhaps this familiarity with digital networked sources could have resulted in their stronger performance in navigating digital texts and evaluating online information in the PIRLS study.
What was noteworthy, however, was that the child’s use of digital devices, which dipped slightly, remained higher than pre-pandemic levels.This suggests that the parental mindset towards their child’s use of digital devices has shifted towards being more accepting and open since the pandemic.
In her seminal book, Reader Come Home, Maryanne Wolf, Professor of Education, University of California, Los Angeles, certainly thinks so. While reading long-form books in digital formats can develop deep reading and sustained focus as well, studies have shown that the medium, be it print or digital, makes a difference to the ways we read.
Regardless, the reading of long-form books, albeit digitally, will endure given its unique role in communicating stories, ideas, and experiences.To arrest the decline in our students’ enjoyment of reading books, it is imperative that schools continue to promote the importance of reading books and invest in the upkeep of their libraries.
Reading digital texts can activate the reader’s scanning and skimming skills to make meaning across networked information efficiently.
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