The aim of this thesis is to describe the thoughts and attitudes that parents have regarding reading aloud. In today?s society the positive effects of reading aloud are often pointed at and in the perspective of the new learning theories I found the issue even more interesting.The two main questions posed are: How do the parents describe the practice of reading aloud?Is the parents? life situation and background visible in their descriptions and in that case how does it show in their thoughts about reading aloud?The theoretical perspective of the thesis is sociocultural and can be divided into two themes. The first theme concerns the learning process that can be the result of reading aloud and the second theme focuses on social aspects. The results of the study show that parents think that reading aloud is valuable and positive.

Preschool has a long tradition of using picture books, both as entertainment and as a resource for educational activities. In science there are two main application areas. The first one is science concepts and the second is to teach basic science process skills. These skills, observing, communicating, inferring, classifying, measuring and predicting reflects the methods used by scientists. Picture books potential to put science concepts and activities that promote the use of science process skills in a meaningful context, recommends using picture books for this purpose.

This thesis presents and evaluates a project, undertaken in 2001 by a librarian the writer of this thesis and a teacher. We met with a number of adults with reading and writing disabilities, and presented and discussed books and experiences of reading, with the aim to increase their joy of reading, as well as finding out more about our own ways of co-operating with each other across our professional borders. The documentation and evaluation emphasizes on the process and the results of the project, and on our own participation, by asking the following questions: How did we carry out the project? What obstacles did we meet? What went well/wrong? What did we achieve related to our goals? In order to illuminate the project from different angles, consequences of reading and writing disabilities for adults are discussed, as well as the specific nature of adult education and projects more or less related to ours. Action research is chosen as a method, because it allows the process of the project, and our own learning process, to be exposed.

The purpose with this essay was to study and analyze how gender roles is represented in six different mathematic books for children in the third and fourth grade and to see if the books counteract or reinforces traditional gender roles. It was also to see if the mathematic books follow the goals in the curriculum. I had four questions that I focused on while analyzing the mathematic books:What kind of activities does girls and boys like in the exercises in the mathematic books?What does girls and boys own in the exercises in the mathematic books?What does the relationships look like between different persons in the mathematic books?Based on the results from questions 1-3, do these six mathematic books try to follow the curriculum?The results of this study shows that girls often can be interested in things that usually is seen as either girlish or boyish, while boys mostly is interested in things that is seen as boyish. I got almost the same results when it comes to the second question, girls can buy things that is often seen as either girlish or boyish, while boys mostly buy things that is seen as boyish.

Do the principals who have the pedagogical responsibility of the school find reading comprehension important? This is the underpinning of my thesis for the special teacher-training program. The survey was conducted through interviews with two principals. The results show that they believe reading comprehension is important but it has not been given priority in the organization. The essay could form the basis for further research into reading habits, home environment influences and other factors that may contribute to improve reading comprehension performance..

The purpose of this essay is to look at how the depiction of cats is performed in childrens? picture books. I will analyze eight pictures from four different books, two from each. The books are from two different decades: from the 1960s and from the 2000s.My ambition is to see if there are any artistic or cultural differences when comparing the two decades? depictions of cats to each other.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how male and female is produced in the literary children?s literature that is found in a Municipal preschool. My issues are the following:Which sex dominates as a main character in the preschools literary books?What type of properties is attributed to the characters?What type of clothes is portrayed on the books characters?I performed a quantitative study of 136 children?s books. I used Maria Nikolajevas perceptions of stereotypical male and female properties to analyze my empirical data.

The purpose with this qualitative text analysis was to study how the sex roles of children are presented in children's books published in 2004 in comparison with children's books published 1972-74. The focus was to find patterns and differences. The study embraces eight books intended for children aged 5-9.The main results of the study showed that the girls were described to have a greater bent to take care, while the boys in general were more aimed to perform and achieve. In both today's and the books from the 70´s, the boys were described as aggressive and independent and the girls were often looked upon as princesses by fathers and boys. Violent rowdy behaviour was the essential thing among boys in especially the books from the 70´s.

A study around some fourteen and fifteen year old boys, who are interested in reading. It is about their reading and library habits, what has created their interest and where they acquire access to literature. A certain amount deals with the habits of the boys? school-friends in this subject. The result compares with earlier made reports.

Our intention with this work has been to examine if books in one particular subject share the same ideology, or if they contain several different ideologies. We have chosen to study and analyse books that deal with death and grief. We suggest that we will get an idea of how society looks upon death by examine how death is presented in books for young children. We have studied and adopted well-known writers on the topic to give sufficient background to our research. In the main public library of Gothenburg we found the latest bookindex of different themes recommended by Bibliotekstjänst.

Why should teachers devote themselves to reading aloud? Reading aloud has a given place in most of the Swedish preschools. Many teachers read to children. Research on the subject has shown that it is very rewarding for preschoolers to have stories read to them. They hear how the language is constructed, becomes aware of matter of text, and they are able to take part of how other people live.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how people from Iran experience reading in their mother tongue, Persian, compared to how they experience reading in Swedish and if there was a difference. The questions to be answered in the thesis were: What is the dominant purpose when people read their mother tongue and when they read in Swedish. Do they read because they need information, because they want to relax or do they, when they read, reflect on their own lives? The method was qualitative, interviews were conducted with 8 Iranians living in Sweden. The theoretical background consists of a description of theories on reading and theories on language and identity.

The purpose of this study was to identify reading strategies used by high school students when reading textbooks and school-related material. Any differences in reading strategies between Biology and English were also of importance. A study sample of 62 students from three different high schools in Sweden participated in the study and were asked to fill out a survey questionnaire. Eight students from this sample were also interviewed. The findings of this study show that students use a number of different reading strategies of which metacognitive and sociocultural factors play a crucial part.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to categorize the publisher readers? views about reading to distinguish a conceivable change of these reviews compared to a historical context during 20 years. I will examine a number of reviews of children?s literature written by publisher readers from BTJ in order to distinguish the assumptions that readers have about children?s reading from how these assumptions appear. The reviews that have chosen is from the years 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2006, with the purpose of studying if there are any legible changes in these assumptions for the past 20 years.

AbstractThe purpose of this work is to try to find out how young people's reading habits among students look at different types of secondary school, ie. both theoretical and practical, and what factors might encourage them to read more. My questions have been; do young people read today? Is there any difference between city, gender or program? What can a teacher do to inspire young people to read more? I have made a questionnaire survey among different students at two different high schools in Skaraborg. The first school is a high school located in a medium sized town, where I made inquiries to the scientific program, social program, Business and Administration Program and the Electricity Program.