November 2022 Inspiring Reads!

Welcome back! It is our pleasure to share with you the fourth and final issue of Reading Nook’s Recommended Readings for this year.

In this issue, we are excited to bring you the recommendations from Nurulhuda (Pre-U), Eka (Sec) and Peggy (Pri). Read on and find out more about their recommendations below!

Specialists’ Picks

By Nurulhuda Abdul Halim

Some years back, an ex-colleague vented in despair that the students were not reading and seemed to only be interested in videos! As we could not under any circumstances, give up on reading, it was about finding ways to help students read better.

Enter Naomi S. Baron’s engaging “How We Read Now” which comprehensively explains the impact of the reading medium on our learning. The research that Baron draws on helps us as curriculum planners to understand the strategic decisions that can be made to read as effectively as possible from multiple formats.

It also provides practical guidance for educators seeking to support students’ reading using different media such as print, screen or audio. It is a book that you can read in parts, over time.

Leaders’ Recommended Reads

By Eka Tanu

The Energy Bus is one of the earlier books I read about leadership. It is easy to read and the principles are easy to grasp. It charts the journey of a protagonist who was not having the best time.

For the two weeks that he had to take the bus (his car had broken down), he had conversations with the bus driver and different commuters who each gave him certain insights to how he can view, manage and lead his life.

One of the key principles which stuck with me was about redirecting your energy away from people who do not want to journey with you or buy into your vision - it made me think about how I need to walk away from such situations or people and reinvest my time wisely.

There are other interesting nuggets in this book about positive energy and if you feel like you need a booster, this short book may just give you the power up you need.

Watcha Reading?

By Peggy Lee

Crying in H Mart only? More like Crying on The Train and Everywhere Else as I read this book mostly on my commute to and from work and I had to hold back my tears every time I did so.

Before I knew Michelle Zauner as an author, I knew her as the quirky lead singer of the band “Japanese Breakfast”. She traverses the realm of songwriting to explore the themes of food, identity and mother-daughter relationships in her debut novel which essentially is a memoir of her mother.

The titular “H Mart”, an Asian supermarket in America, highlights the role of food in Zauner’s life. Being a mixed-race Korean American, Zauner’s connection to her Korean roots was mostly through the home-cooked dishes whipped up by her Korean mother. Grocery runs to H Mart with her mother become once fond memories of hers as less than halfway into the book, Zauner opens up about the painful loss of her mother.

The pages after that revelation further reveal the complex relationship Zauner has with her mother and records her journey of grief and healing as she attempts to recreate the experiences with her mother through what they bond best over – food.

September 2022 Inspirational Reads

Welcome back! It is our pleasure to share with you the third issue of Reading Nook’s Recommended Readings.

In this issue, we are excited to bring you the recommendations from Kalthom (Pri), Meenakshi (Sec) and Adeline (Pre-U). Read on and find out more about their recommendations below!

Specialists’ Picks

By Kalthom Ahmad

These two articles by Jones, S.A. and Renandya, W.A. et. al., discuss the advantages of series books for young or novice readers. Many, many moons ago, when I was finally able to access my school library as a P5 student, I made up for lost reading-for-pleasure time by reading a book a day. I started with the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series, and any series books by Enid Blyton.

The articles highlighted that for children aged nine to twelve, reading series books is often a first phase in their independent reading. Series reading is a special form of narrow reading where one would read several books by one author or about a single topic of interest. Series reading is very popular because series books contain highly familiar language, easy-to-follow story lines, and relatable characters who do not seem to age. The spill over from book to book makes reading less taxing, more comforting and helps build fluency. Readers’ familiarity with a series’ context and characters is important too for them to be able to talk about books with their peers, in a kind of ‘fellowship’.

As educators, we must balance wide and extensive reading, (for which we tend to recommend books that have informational or literary value for our students), and narrow or series reading, so that we can attract novice readers who may benefit more through it.

It would also be interesting to find out what kinds of series books fellowships we have in ELLB.

References

Jones, S. A. (2015). Children reading series books: Ways into peer culture and reading development. Changing English, 22(3), 307-325.

Renandya, W. A., Krashen, S., & Jacobs, G. M. (2018). The potential of series books: How narrow reading leads to advanced L2 proficiency. LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network, 11(2), 148-154.

Leaders’ Recommended Reads

By Meenakshi Palaniappan

This book by Antony Doerr, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, is one of the most beautifully and magically crafted books I have read. I would highly recommend it for anyone to read and read again. Set during World War II, the book follows parallel stories of a blind French girl, a German orphan boy, and gemmologist in pursuit of a treasure. Tying these narratives together is the Sea of Flames, a legendary diamond, and a book, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Characters come alive, experiences feel real, and the story is gripping from start to end. The story moves back and forth in time, leading up to the moments these three characters meet. This book also explores the tender love between a father and his blind daughter, the power of stories, music and the radio, and presented me with new insights into WWII. It makes us ask ourselves what we would do in such a situation.

Some lines just take your breath away, here are just a few:

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever”

“So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?”

“All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready?”

This is a great read for the holidays, where you can immerse yourself it in and find yourself anew after you have finished. Enjoy!

Watcha Reading?

By Adeline Mah

I recommend this book as it is a moving read about a particular segment of Singapore society. It tells the stories of residents who were relocated from Dakota Crescent to Cassia Crescent. Each chapter is a three-part conversation that consists of an interview with a resident, a reflection of a volunteer with the Cassia Resettlement Team and an essay by an academic. The power of ethnographic research comes through the residents' stories and is a reminder to me of the lives behind the numbers that we often encounter in research.

As you read the interviews, you could almost hear the voices of the residents!

The book explores the role of community services and the balance between community services and self-reliance. There is much insight to be gleaned about what makes a community strong, what matters to people living in Singapore and what kind of society we would like Singapore to be.

July 2022 Inspirational Reads!

It is our pleasure to share with you the second issue of Reading Nook’s Recommended Readings! This issue comes with three book recommendations as well: Specialists’ Picks, Leaders’ Recommended Reads, and Watcha Reading?

In this issue, we are excited to bring you the recommendations from Joo Jin (Sec), Stephanie (Pri) and Victoria (Pre-U). Read on and find out more about their recommendations below!

Specialists’ Picks

By Sim Joo Jin

Imagine coming across a book entitled “An Introduction to Poetry” and finding out that its authors were Eliot, Larkin, and Auden or while looking for a good introduction to painting, stumbling upon a book named “How to Paint” by Picasso.

The books above don’t exist, at least not as introductory books written for beginners. But Memory, written by a trio who have made key contributions to our understanding of how we remember stuff (and forget others), is just such a book.

Looking over the last decade of my time in HQ, I find that much of it has been a “cognitive” adventure. Part of this could be due to what seems to me now the sociolinguistic bent of my course in university. Without realizing it, I was starved of cognitive explanations for the things I was studying. When we go on a long trip in a foreign land, we need a guide, and Memory is like the Lonely Planet Guide to Your Mind, providing an itinerary that included all the “must-see” concepts, like episodic memory, motivated forgetting and retrieval.

Digging deep into readings from a cognitive perspective helped me understand what might be going on in the mind when we comprehend, remember and learn. This helped me in my conversations with colleagues in other Branches, where we go beyond language acquisition and explore learning in other disciplines. Perhaps unsurprisingly, going beyond language learning helped me understand language learning more.

Leaders’ Recommended Reads

By Stephanie Louise Ho

This delightful pocket-sized book was a gift from a good friend. When I received it, I was curious about its contents because on the surface, it appeared to be a book more suited for young readers.

But once I started reading this short but beautifully drawn fable about three children’s adventure to a new playground, I began to realise that the powerful mix of quotes and illustrations was prompting me to contemplate more deeply about leadership and courage. Like a comforting cup of hot chocolate on a rainy day, this book has inspired and motivated me with its many little nuggets of wisdom.

In trying to navigate a rapidly evolving landscape, it is sometimes easy to lose sight of the larger intent and meaning of the journey undertaken. For this reason, one of my favourite quotes from the book is this: Excitement comes from the achievement. Fulfilment comes from the journey that got you there. It reminds me to be grateful for the long, winding and sometimes bumpy road that life offers. Additionally, the book reminds me to treasure the people who journey with me because together is indeed simply better.

Watcha Reading?

By Victoria-Marie Er

17A Keong Siak Road chronicles the unique life of Charmaine Leung and her mother. It explores a world that no longer exists and is inconceivable in these times.

It tells the story of a woman taken from her homeland in China to be adopted in Singapore, and eventually raises her own daughter in a brothel. This is history unrecorded in our textbooks and academic readings: stories of strong women in hard places who were forced to make difficult choices, and now live in the invisible shadows of Singapore that has transformed tremendously in front of their eyes. After all, their familiar red light district has turned into a hangout for the middle and upper-class echelons of society.

More than the novelty of hearing such a rare narrative of our home, the story of familial relationships, heartbreaks and finding our way home resonated with me, and reminded me that even though life can change drastically in ways that we can’t even imagine, the human condition remains the same – we all need love, connection, and a home we can belong to.