Pintar Baca: Enriching pupils’ reading through stories of origins of names of places in Singapore [Pintar Baca: Mengayakan pembacaan murid melalui cerita asal usul nama tempat di Singapura]

Abstract

Kemahiran membaca merupakan antara kemahiran asas yang perlu dibina di peringkat sekolah rendah. Kajian awal mendapati bahawa murid kurang berminat untuk membaca dan ini menjejas penguasaan kosa kata dan pemahaman mereka. Justeru, Kad Pintar Baca diperkenalkan bagi membantu meningkatkan minat dan keupayaan murid memahami teks-teks yang dibaca. Kad Pintar Baca merupakan kumpulan bahan pengajaran dan pembelajaran hasil terbitan Pusat Bahasa Melayu Singapura. Bahan ini dihasilkan bagi membantu murid-murid di sekolah rendah mempertingkat penguasaan bahasa mereka melalui pembacaan. Kad–kad ini yang dihasilkan bagi peringkat Darjah 2 hingga 4 ini mengandungi 12 cerita asal usul nama tempat- tempat di Singapura. Melalui pendedahan cerita-cerita bersejarah ini, diharapkan dapat menimbulkan minat dan memperkukuh pengetahuan murid mengenai latar sejarah beberapa tempat di Singapura dengan cara yang lebih mudah dan menarik. Di samping itu, setiap cerita disusuli dengan soalan-soalan kefahaman yang akan membina pemahaman murid mengenai cerita yang telah dibaca. Bahan ini diuji cuba di 9 buah sekolah yang melibatkan 189 orang murid. Strategi rutin berfikir diterapkan dalam pengajaran dan pembelajaran bagi menyokong penggunaan bahan Kad Pintar Baca ini. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan bahawa terdapatnya peningkatan dari segi minat dan keseronokan membaca dalam kalangan murid. Di samping itu, penerapan rutin-rutin berfikir juga telah berjaya membantu murid memahami isi kandungan cerita dan mempertingkat penguasaan bahasa dan pemahaman mereka.

[Reading is one of the basic skills needed to be enhance at the primary school level. Early research shows that pupils lack the interest in reading and this affected their ability to grasp vocab and understanding. Thus, Pintar Baca cards were introduced to help increase interest and level up pupils’ ability to understand the texts read. The Pintar Baca cards comprises of teaching and learning tools published by the Malay Language Centre of Singapore. These resources were designed to help primary school pupils improve their language mastery through reading. These cards were developed for Primary 2 to 4 and consists of 12 stories on the names of origins of places of Singapore. It is hoped that through these historical stories, we are able to instil interest and strengthen pupils’ knowledge on the historical background of some places in Singapore in a simpler and more interesting way. In addition, each story comes with a set of comprehension questions which can develop pupils’ understanding on the reading materials. A trialling session was done at 9 primary schools involving around 189 pupils. A thinking routine strategy were applied in the teaching and learning during the trialling sessions to support the use of the Pintar Baca cards. Research findings showed an increase in reading interest amongst pupils. In addition, the application of the thinking routines has helped improve pupils’ understanding of the contents of the stories and their language mastery.]