Malay Literacy Education: Curriculum Content and Student Motivation in Reading

This study explores the content of the reading skills curriculum in Malay literacy education and identifies students' reading motivation in Brunei Darussalam. A qualitative approach is used in the study by analyzing the content of reading skills in curriculum documents and the Malay language syllabus from Year 1 to Year 11. In addition, the study also uses a quantitative approach to descriptively identify students' reading motivation in one of the boys' secondary schools in the Brunei and Muara District. This research involved 180 students in Years 7, 8, and 9. The results of the study showed that the reading skills emphasized in the curriculum are reading aloud skills for students in primary school and comprehension skills for students in primary school to the secondary school level. The students' motivation shows the category of the concept of appreciating what is read, chosen by the majority of the students is item 8, which is ‘people who read are interesting people’ (mean 3.41), and item 20, which is students are happy if they are given a book as a gift (mean 3.41). Next, in the category of students' self-concept as readers, students think reading is an easy activity (mean 3.63). Nevertheless, they sometimes worry about their friends' impressions of those interested in reading (mean 2.13). Lastly, the category of reading activities at home showed a low mean score of 2.92 and a standard deviation of .682. Basic reading skills and motivation are essential and should not be ignored because, without them, it is rather difficult for students to become literate and communicate and understand the information in various contexts in this century.