A pedagogical approach to multimedia courseware development to motivate reading habit

The reading survey carried out by the National Library of Malaysia (1996), reported that the average Malaysian reads only half a page in a year. In order to enhance reading among Malaysians, reading habit should be instilled while they are young and this can be done through various pre-reading activities like drawing, writing and storytelling. However, storytelling by parents rarely takes place in this modern hectic life of today. Most of the parents spend much of their time on their job than reading to their children. When they do, children are read to using books on foreign folktales, which may not be adaptive to local culture. Realizing these problems, there is a need for research into developing a suitable model to motivate reading habit especially among children at an early age. The model should incorporate the use of Malaysian folktales using multimedia technology. The paper attempts to highlight the conceptual model of multimedia courseware on Malaysian folktales which is based on the learning and pedagogical approaches deemed suitable for children in motivating them to read. The design of this courseware is then based on a “2T SIGN” principle, which uses six criteria: Thematic, Technological, Simulative, Interactive, Gaming and Navigative