| Abstract: | 1985 marked the beginning of the implementation of the Reading and English Acquisition Programme (REAP)—a programme aimed at retraining lower primary English teachers in reading and English language instruction. This programme covering 90 schools in 1986 evolved from research conducted by the Institute of Education personnel. The Reading Skills Project (see Ng, 1984), a 3-year study, examined pupils' reading progress from Primary 1 to 3 in 35 schools; a teacher-observation study looked into reading instructional activities in 24 of the above schools. There was simultaneously a search for reading instruction approaches suitable for the Singapore classroom followed by a small feasibility survey on a chosen approach; a re-examination of in-service reading courses and a literature search for strategies for programme implementation. The present study attempts to discuss only the teacher-observation facet of the total research work behind REAP. In view of the fact that Singapore-based teacher-observation studies are few (see Evaluation of CLIPS, 1981) and studies on the teaching of reading in lower primary still fewer (see Ng, 1980), it is important to first record the research findings for the study done in 1984, and their implications for classroom practice. As this study both replicates and extends a similar study done earlier, teacher educators and educational authorities may find, from the accumulated experience, confirming evidence of directions for a retraining programme for reading teachers, and the urgent need for both curriculum and instructional change in this field. |
