MRL Programmes

MISSION:

The school MRL provides an environment for information and ideas for pupils to adapt quickly to the knowledge-based society of the 21st Century.

VISION:

Every Child an O.W.L. (Outstanding Witty Learned)

GOAL:

Our school MRL’s goal is to promote reading, learning and learning information literacy to empower pupils for a healthy and learned development in their life.

“We want to encourage our children to enjoy reading to broaden their imagination and perspectives, beyond obtaining academic knowledge.”

– Minister of State Chee Hong Tat, 2016

The Reading Excellence Award 2017, brought to you by NLB and MOE, recognises MOE primary and secondary schools that have developed excellent reading programmes which promote a love of reading among students. West Grove Primary School was shortlisted among many schools, receiving an award of commendation on the reading programmes that promote a love of reading among students.

PROGRAMMES OVERVIEW:

O.W.L. Lessons
MRL Monthly Readership
Monthly Library Activities
School Reading Ambassadors
KidsREAD Reading Club
Competitions
Information Literacy Programme
Books to Go - Mobile Library
Workshops and Book Talks

KEY PROGRAMMES:

1. O.W.L. Lessons

All the classes need to go to the library at least 3 times a year to for O.W.L. lesson. It is a library lesson for students to learn library citizenship and skills and to widen their reading. After the visitation, students will complete simple activities in their MRL booklet. The lessons include the following which is spread across the student’s primary school education

Basic Orientation with library rules
Types of Books - Fiction and Non-Fiction including the Dewey Decimal Classification
Introducing Authors 1
Introducing Authors 2
Award Winning Books
Reading Festival with a specific topic for the year; Eg in 2016 is “Science Fiction”
Read Reap Write: Discover Robin Hood
Read Reap Write: “Bone Hunt” by AMONster02
Read Reap Write: “Sherlock Sam series” by A.J. Low
Read Reap Write: “Beware the Ninja Weenies and other creepy tales” by David Lubar.

2. MRL Monthly Readership Completion

Every month, MRL will generate a report on the number of books borrowed by each class and individual pupils. The class and pupil with the highest borrowing rate for each level will be rewarded with certificates for their achievements. In 2017, MRL launched another award to reward pupils who show the greatest progress in the number of books read within two months. This serves to encourage reluctant readers to read more continuously.

To encourage pupils to read more and widely, OWL (Our Wonderful Library) together with the READ@School programme, bring Book Bugs II to the Primary 2 and Primary 3 in 2018. Pupils will have to design their own bug trivia and borrow 2 books from our school library to redeem a book bug card. Many pupils visited the school library to participate in this activity.

3. Monthly Library Activities

The OWL (Our Wonderful Library) had thematic displays and these displays come along with interesting activities such as word search and crossword puzzles for students to participate in. Students will get to know the upcoming themes through the morning assembly notifications and announcements made in the canteen TVs. Students can simply visit the library, read through the displays and win exciting tokens by completing the activities. Students will also get to read books related to these themes to widen their reads.

In 2018, we have themes as follows:

Fantasy Fun
Books to Movie
The Secret World of Spies
Think Green
The World of Folklore
Soccer Soccer
Explore Sci-Fi
Discover the World of Narnia
Discover Big Nate

4. School Reading Ambassadors

A group of pupils is selected to be the School Reading Ambassadors. They are one of the student leaders in West Grove. These students attended School Reading Ambassador Workshops conducted by our MRL teachers. They will be leading the reading trend and takes on the role to promote reading among West Grovians. The school reading ambassadors will present a book review during morning assembly weekly and selected pupils will also represent the school to tell stories at the community library. The ambassadors also come together to prepare a thematic book display in the school library. In 2016 and 2017, some of the school reading ambassadors also took time to prepare book displays and shelf talkers at Jurong West Public Library as a collaborative effort.

5. KidsREAD Reading Club

“Children have unlimited imagination. Reading helps them discover new horizons. It sharpens yet blurs their boundaries for what is real and the impossible. It helps children to dream. I believe we need to encourage that in the young.”

Then- Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong speaking during the kidsREAD launch

The objectives of the club are:

To leverage the strengths of various partners to create a reading programme for children
To promote the love of reading and cultivate good reading habits among young Singaporeans, specifically children from the lower income families
To provide an avenue for children from various races to interact from an early age
To help enhance the quality of life of the children and their families

This is a new reading club set up in 2014 April for selected P1 and P2 pupils. KidsREAD Reading Club is initiated by the National Library Board and the club is possible with the support of NLB, our school leaders, committed teachers and most importantly our volunteers. Our volunteers and coordinator attended a training session at the NLB and are always striving to make each kidsREAD session a meaningful one for all pupils in this club. Every year, selected stories are made relevant with an outing and project. We have visited Gallop Stable for pony rides after reading “The Lost Horse”, visited Underwater World and Sea Aquarium to find out more about sea creatures after reading “ The Rainbow Fish” & “The Hermit Crab” and experiential learning for Pizza Making after reading book “Don’t Forget the Bacon”.

Children at work, designing their own shell after reading a book titled “The Hermit Crab”

Story Telling session by the volunteers

Grooming the pony at The Gallop Stable

Making “Gruffalo” headband after storytelling of “The Gruffalo”

Students having a good time during “Pizza making”

Students learning to flatten the dough, and decorating pizza before enjoying the self-created pizza!

6. Competitions

The National Story Challenge (NSC) Tournament is an original improvisational storytelling competition opened to students in all primary and secondary schools. The tournament hopes to promote eloquence and a healthy interest in language.

2017 is the second year West Grove Primary School participates in this tournament. A total of 39 participants from our school have taken part in this challenge. By participating in workshop sessions, participants picked up storytelling skills through theatre games and find new ways to express themselves via creative movement, voice training and improvisational acting. On a deeper level, they have become more observant, learnt to think critically when evaluating current issues and hence expand their knowledge to help them in performing.

In 2017, we had 29 participants in the finals winning in several categories.

7. Information Literacy Programme

In MRL, we promote the importance of information searching and discernment. It is important that pupils learnt important literacy skills in view of the different media resources available. Together with READ@School, MRL conducted SURE-vivor to promote information literacy to allow students to understand information sources and make careful decisions before using them for their knowledge.

During the school holidays, a Digital Information Literacy programme workshop was conducted for selected school reading ambassadors and InfoMedia Club members. Through this workshop, students understand plagiarism and recognise the consequences of plagiarism. They also learnt to select efficient and effective approaches for accessing required information for investigative and retrieval purpose.

8. Books to Go - Mobile Library

West Grove also collaborates with the National Library Board for students to borrow a wider variety of books. We encourage pupils to borrow more books, especially before the school holidays to read. With wider resources of books, the school arranged NLB mobile library sessions for pupils to borrow books from NLB in our school compound. This is made possible as our school made arrangements to help pupils register for NLB membership at Primary 1.

9. Workshops & Book Talks

During the P1 Induction days, “Raising Readers” workshop was conducted for P1 parents. This aims to help parents identify the child’s reader type and choosing a book for the child. The librarian will also introduce a variety of reading materials and eResources on NLB website. Parents can look forward to finding out more on ways to support their children’s reading at Primary 1.

Our school invites librarian from the NLB to conduct interesting storytelling session and book talks during the assembly during the West Grove Reading Festival period. In 2018, we invited the NLB to conduct Kids Lit Quiz assembly programme for the upper primary while our experience teacher conducted an in-house reading quiz session for our Primary 1s and 2s to encourage our children to find out more about various story books in our school library.

Resources:

To find out more about the books and resources in our school library, visit our library online public access catalogue (OPAC):

https://westgrovepri.spydus.com.sg

Refer to student’s MRL Booklet for further instructions.

Sign up with NLB for a wider range of resources including eBooks: https://www.nlb.gov.sg/myLibraryInfo.aspx

DiscoveReads Link: http://www.nlb.gov.sg/discovereads/

The Reading Excellence Award:

http://www.nlb.gov.sg/discovereads/readingaward/