How We Read Podcast Series
In this post, I introduce the How We Read podcast series, seven educational podcasts about reading. Produced by Kenn Delbridge of Splice Studios and hosted by myself, this series takes you into the world of reading, from childhood to old age, to uncover the art and science of learning to read.
The How We Read or HWR series was designed to be part of my teaching resources for the module, MEL918 Reading in a Multimodal Age, which I run annually at the National Institute of Education for the Master in English Education degree. Typically, I can only accommodate 25 students in my class but I figured the content of the podcasts would be useful to teachers, parents, librarians and anyone interested in reading. So we have tried to make the podcast as public-friendly as possible and place it on all major podcast platforms such as Spotify and iTunes.
I had thought about doing a podcast since 2017 but it wasn’t until I found Kenn that that the idea for a high quality podcast became feasible. Kenn is the founder of Splice Studio and also produces and hosts Know or Not, an Asian-focused documentary style podcast. The style was exactly what we needed for an educational podcast that was meant to take theory out of the classroom by bringing my students into the real world through the stories and interviews of practitioners, parents and policymakers.
HWR Brainstorming Session with Kenn Delbridge and Teoh Yong Qin at Splice Studios
It was a real learning journey for me, since this was the first time I involved in creating a podcast. Each episode involved multiple interviewees and I had to learn the art of scripting for a podcast, with Kenn’s expert help. Narration was tough and I learnt that even though no one could see you, they could hear whether you were smiling or not. I have a greater respect for sound producers, voice actors and radio deejays after this experience.
It was hard work balancing the research with the narrative of each episode, and I learnt that there was only so much that could be squeezed into 20 minutes or so, to keep the attention of the listener. I was fortunate to have Teoh Yong Qin on board as a project assistant to help with the research and some on-site interviews and soundscape collection.
The HWR podcast series would not have been possible without the Incentivising ICT-Use Innovations Grant (I3G) awarded by NIE and the willingness of my guests who shared their time and expertise with me. I interviewed many of my colleagues and had the opportunity to listen to many experts. My PhD student, Edmen Leong, gamely shared about how dyslexic children learn to read with me. That interview, together with interviews with Professor Tommy Koh about reading literature, and author Felicia Jimenez-Low became bonus episodes as there were too much rich material that couldn’t be squeezed into the main podcasts.
Interviewing Edmen Leong, Director of Specialised Educational Services, about dyslexia
The HWR series takes the listeners from reading in childhood to adulthood, and ends with a speculation about the future of reading. The focus of each episode is ultimately to provide ideas for thinking about the way we teach reading or provide for students to learn to read.
For convenience, I list the episode titles here.
[Launch 4 Jan] The Bedtime Story (featuring Dr Jo Ann Shek from NIE, Author Lianne Ong, Actors Dwayne Lau and Hossan Leong, Valerie Yong & children)
[Launch 11 Jan] The Bilingual Reading Brain (featuring Dr Beth O’Brien, Dr Sun Baoqi, Associate Professor Mukhlis Abu Baker from NIE, Dr Maryanne Wolf and Ling Xin Jin & Nadia)
[Launch 18 Jan] Helping Others Read (featuring Michelle Yeo and Joy Tan from ReadAble and Dr Tan Chee Soon from NIE; with a Bonus Episode featuring Edmen Leong on dyslexia)
[Launch 25 Jan] Comic Relief (featuring Felicia Low-Jimenez, CT Lim, Teo Xing Zhi from NLB and Sarah Mounsey from Dulwich College (Singapore) with Bonus Episode featuring Felicia talking about the Adventures of Sherlock Sam)
[Launch 1 Feb] Reading Poetry (featuring Associate Professor Joel Gwynne from NIE, Esther Vincent of Tiger Moth, and Marc Nair, spoken word poet)
[Launch 8 Feb] True or Not? How to Spot Fake News (featuring Associate Professor Csilla Weninger from NIE, Associate Professor Jiow Hee Jhee from the Singapore Institute of Technology, Tan Tarn How, former ST journalist and Jaime Ho from CNA Digital)
[Launch 15 Feb] Reading into the Future (featuring Dr Angelia Poon and Victor Lim Fei from NIE and Professor Tommy Koh; with Bonus Episode featuring Professor Tommy Koh on the Importance of Literature)
You can access the HWR Podcast from my website, Omny or any podcast platform such as iTunes and Spotify. If you enjoyed it and have suggestions for other reading-related podcasts, do drop me an email at chinee.loh@nie.edu.sg.