Educational policy and children’s experience : Running records in a lower primary Singaporean English language classroom

In this article, I report on a small project involving the use of guided reading groups, levelled texts and running records in a mu ltilingual primary school in Singapore. I focus on running records and ask whether their use is suitable pedagogically and practically for the Singaporean context. The analysis of twenty-two records of primary one and primary t wo children shows differences in the knowledge and strategies used by the different cohorts, and reading miscues related particularly to the languages and varieties of English spoken in Singapore. The analysis also shows a tension between the educational documentation and the children's experiences of reading.