A study of an online community for promoting Chinese reading among primary schools in Hong Kong

An online community for promoting students to naturally develop true interest and sustainable habit of Chinese reading has been set up among six primary schools in Hong Kong. The approach of Reading of Tomorrow is adopted, which integrates the rationale of Modeled Sustained Silent Reading (MSSR) and the use of a game-based learning platform “Bookstore of Tomorrow”. This paper shares the first-phase experience of this online reading community, of which a total of 534 students across Grade 4 to Grade 6 in the six collaborating schools participated in the half-year Reading of Tomorrow activities for reading books according to own interest, sharing personal reading records, making book recommendations to peers, and reading peers’ book recommendations. In the student questionnaire survey, the participating students positively perceived the impact of the Reading of Tomorrow approach on motivating them to not only keep habit and increase interest in Chinese reading, but also to explore new reading topics and develop new thinking ways through sharing book recommendations with peers using the “Bookstore of Tomorrow” platform. In the focus group interviews, the participating teachers acknowledged the potential of the Reading of Tomorrow approach to influence students to increase reading frequency and widen reading topics; and suggested the need to focus on promoting students to interact with peers more for sharing personal comments and feelings after reading books. Implications are discussed for the online reading community to sustain students’ motivation and interest in reading extensively for learning new knowledge and developing creative thinking. Copyright © 2016 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.