Who should teach kids to read: Teachers or parents?

Facebook post by educator sparks debate on whose responsibility it is to teach pupils to read

The debate on reading comes even as a study last year found that children here rank second out of 58 territories in terms of how well pupils read.
The debate on reading comes even as a study last year found that children here rank second out of 58 territories in terms of how well pupils read.ST PHOTO: AZMI ATHNI
Political Correspondent
  • Published
    Jan 28, 2019, 5:00 am SGT
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Earlier this month, Ms Lenny Rahman, a physical education teacher, was carrying out a classroom exercise for Primary 1 pupils that required them to label different body parts. A pupil asked her for help, and she told him to read out the instructions from his textbook.

But the 34-year-old realised that he could not recognise even simple words such as "is", "the" and "her".

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 28, 2019, with the headline 'Who should teach kids to read: Teachers or parents?'. Subscribe
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