CommonTown was awarded distinguished paper award at the recent 2015 International Symposium on Education and Psychology Conference. 

Chung, T., Leong, M. K., Loo, J. Yan, R. (2015). A Case Study of the SECURe Framework to Foster Creativity and Reading Comprehension Skills in L2 Preschoolers via Chinese eBooks. Paper presented at the International Symposium of Education and Psychology Conference, Kuala Lumpur.

Abstract:

Children with good reading skills are more creative. Reading comprehension skills (e.g., skills that help children understand facts, organize ideas, make comparisons and predictions) can be developed in children through practice. These reading skills support creative thinking, which is the novel connection of ideas or concepts in our minds, through thought-stimulating activities such as the use of rich illustrations that stimulate children’s curiosity and active imagination to interpret the images and movement activities to let children acquire meanings of words through multiple modalities. This paper introduces a Chinese reading comprehension program that incorporates learning materials to stimulate children’s imagination as well as improve their Chinese literacy skills. It also details the SECURe framework to help teachers prepare for lessons and evaluate children improvements.