This master thesis is based on the sociocultural perspective. A qualitative research study was conducted to investigate children's attitudes towards reading, texts and libraries.The theoretical background is constituted by ideas from the new sociology of childhood, literacy-studies and reader-response theory.The study was conducted with 23 children, 13 girls and 10 boys, participating in focus groups.The results of the study reveal that children's literacy-activities in school are strongly influenced and limited by adults. Children's interest in pictures and non-fiction-reading do not correspond to the school institution that favors traditional media and fiction. The study also reveals a gender division between children's literacy-activities that tends to grow with age. All the children in the study regard libraries as book-houses and wished for libraries that combine activity and serenity.The thesis shows the importance of being aware of, and engage in, children's reading-interests and reading-practices if the reading stimulating activities in schools and libraries are to be successful.

Studies show that some pupils with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) can have difficulties in understanding written texts. The present study seeks to examine whether pupils with ASD differ in their reading comprehension of a factual text and a literary text. Another aim of the study is to obtain a picture of the reading habits of high school pupils with ASD, what reading strategies they use, and how they work with texts in Swedish lessons in school.The study uses texts from PISA surveys from 2009 and 2000. The factual text Varmluftsballongen (The Hot-air Balloon) was taken from the try-out for the 2009 survey and the literary text Gåvan (The Gift) was taken from the 2000 PISA survey. To gain some idea of the pupils? reading comprehension of the texts, the present study used the tasks accompanying the texts, with certain changes in the questions about the text on the hot-air balloon.

AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to increase the knowledge of which strategies students with reading and writing disabilities or dyslexia use to learn in secondary school. The study aims to examine the following questions:Which coping strategies do students with reading and writing disabilities use in their studies?How can remedial teachers support students with reading and writing disabilities in their learning process?The study consists of two interviews with a total of three hours recorded material made with a secondary school teacher who teaches Swedish and English. The teacher has experiences of reading and writing disabilities herself but also from teaching students with dyslexia. The interviews are constructed into a lifestory describing experiences of reading and writing disabilities in school, during teacher training and as a teacher.

As the way of communicating and accessing information has changed radically over thepast decade so has the way the public libraries operate to reach the citizens. In thesetimes the demands of what a public library should be and offer the visitors havechanged. One should have the option to access the digital public library at any givenhour of the day, from anywhere in the world and at least have the same possibilities ofinformation as the visitors at the non-digital, "real" library.In this Master's thesis we will analyze and discuss the condition of the Swedish digitalpublic library of today, 2006, and the forward thinking work with the issues ofdevelopment in this matter. In order to do this we set out to examine the attitudetowards the public digital library among the staff at a small number of Swedish publiclibraries and their supporting institution, the county library. Moreover, the attitudesdefined have been compared to the actual status of the services and medias at the publiclibrary websites.In conclusion, we have detected a certain standardization of what the digital publiclibrary consists of today.

During the last ten years, PIRLS and PISA have evaluated the reading levels of children and youth around the world, sometimes with grim results. The Swedish evaluation show a constant decline in reading comprehension, and Sweden, which from the start produced one of the best results in the world, have plummeted to the bottom of the ranks. The librarians of the public library have extensive experience of working with different projects engaging children and youth in reading, and so they have a major part to play in this matter. Consequently, the aim of this study is to examine and describe the different perceptions the public librarians have of these projects. Four research questions were formulated, each focusing on the perceptions regarding different aspects of the reading promotion projects.

This Master's thesis aims to discover, understand and interpret how,with what results, and with what settings adults reading are investigatedin a series of nine Master's theses, written at The Swedish School ofLibrary and Information Science at the University of Borås 2000-2010.This Master's thesis is a meta-study that operates with theoreticalconcepts such as discipline, sub-discipline, research field,interdisciplinarity and with a qualitative research method calledanalytic induction. The results show that LIS - reader studies illustratevaried knowledge about adults reading that investigates with two mainapproaches - a general and a specific one - but with a common interestin two main categories: reading circumstances and reading effects andvalues. LIS ? reader studies show an instrumental perception of theborrowed theories for study of reading and their application and a lessepistemological justification of these in relation to LIS, as own researchfield. The problem area readers and reading is regarded withuncertainty as study topic in the LIS, and this attitude shows up, despitea depth theoretical awareness, a less intellectual self-awareness and amore pragmatic one..

It is not uncommon for math difficulties and reading difficulties to occur simultaneously. Despite this, math and reading difficulties are thought to have different cognitive profiles where math difficulties are linked to number sense; an innate ability to understand, approximate and manipulate both quantities and numerical information, whereas reading difficulties are linked to phonological ability; an innate ability to understand, create representations of and manipulate phonological information. A possible link between the difficulties is that phonological abilities also could affect mathematical ability. Support for this comes from studies where comorbid math and reading difficulties are associated with more severe difficulties in arithmetic ability compared to those with isolated math difficulties. The purpose of this study is to examine whether isolated math difficulties, isolated reading difficulties and comorbid math and reading difficulties can be linked to deficits in number sense, phonological ability or both of these, and whether comorbid math and reading difficulties differ in performance in mathematical tasks compared to isolated math difficulties for children in second grade.

AbstractThe purpose with this essay is to get an insight on how the school has changed over the past years in terms of reading- and writing difficulties/dyslexia. In the literature studies I mention reading- and writing difficulties and the reasons why some people get these problems. Further on in the literature study it is written about what the education act and the curriculum say about the school?s duties towards pupils in need of special support.The result contains interviews with one language pedagogue and one special pedagogue who work in two different municipalities. In addition I interviewed two former pupils who went to school 15-20 years ago.I came to the conclusion that today?s schools have changed to the better for the pupils with difficulties.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the factors of children?s voluntarily reading in their spare time. We also want to know if the children choose non-fiction books for their voluntarily reading. The method as well as the empirical basis of this study is qualitative, with interviews of twenty-eight children in ages between 9 and 12 years. We conducted nine interviews with 3?4 children in each group.

Social media, such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, have become popular platforms for social communication, and, increasingly, also important channels for business marketing. For a business intending to use social media for marketing, however, developing a strategy and building a trademark can be a challenge. This report describes how a small, newly established business enterprise can develop a digital strategy with clear goals and practical guidelines. The report describes a digital strategy for Gelato Scarfó and shows how this strategy is made concrete through a set of guidelines. The guidelines develop a trademark for identification and loyalty, and give advice on how new materials can be made consistent with the trademark..

AbstractI have chosen to make a study of the learning of reading and writing, as well as other learning difficulties that may occur, in this research.My choice of subject is based on the realizations I made during my time as a student teacher; that each teacher has his/her own way of teaching reading and writing. Sometimes, however, learning difficulties occur, and this insight caught my attention. It made me think about the underlaying reasons and how we, as teachers, can bring attention to these difficulties. With these questions in mind, I recorded my observations based on a series of interviews and literary studies in an attempt to answer my questions. The resulting research emphasizes how important the actions from the teachers are, as well the importance of having variety in your lesson plan.

Every now and then, in media research studies and in various newspaper articles, schoolboys´ issues reading habits are discussed. Much of what is written concerns boys decreasing marks in the field of literature, in the Swedish language and also their negative attitude towards reading books. Some scholars claim that boys do not read because they consider reading books as a women´s duty. Other people believe that underlying causes for boys negative attitude towards reading is biological, that it´s genetic and consequently physical, and that male and female brains are functionally different. Another theory of today is that boys actually reads, but not that kind of texts and literature that they are exposed to in school.Based on a selection of these opinions and theories, and my own experience and interest for questions concerning school and gender, the aim of this studie was to examine boys worlds of reading.

AbstractTitle: The old generation and the New World - A qualitative content analysis of media usage of the older generationKeywords:Digital natives, digital immigrants, diffusion of innovation, content analysisThis study has its focus on how the older generation looks at today's media society and the use of today's media. Through a method of qualitative content analysis based on questionnaires, the aim is to examine what the older generation thinks about today's media, how they use them, and whether there are differences in groups according to age and previous work.The study selected theories bases on Marc Prenskys idea of ??digital natives, digital immigrants and Everett M Rogers book on "Diffusion of Innovation". These theories take up the difference on digital natives and digital immigrants and the spread of new technological ideas takes place through communication over different channels in time among causes people in a social system.The result of the study shows that many older people are good at making use of today's media, but also that many may feel alienation of today's media society. Development has proceeded rapidly in recent years and for the older generation it's sometimes hard to keep up.The conclusion of the study is that the older generation may need more help to discover how today's media can facilitate everyday life and enrich it with more communication despite the fact that it takes place through a screen..

By studying recent literature and following current research we know that language awareness and a rich language is important to all children when learning reading and writing and that decoding and understanding of the words are the fundamental processes in reading. How do pupils with visual impairment learn how to read and write? What strategies do they use in their contacts with reading and writing? What are the advantages do pupils with visual impairment have when learning to read and write? These questions have been the starting points in a study we have done by following two pupils with visual impairment. By meeting and discussing with the children, their parents, teachers, and lowvisiontherapists we have got a deeper knowledge in how these children meet the language in reading and writing. We have also come to an understanding regarding people surrounding the children have to make reading and writing comprehensive, enjoying, and meaningful.The problem for a child with visual impairment is the decoding, to catch letters and pictures of words good enough with the sight.

Within the Swedish school and the public library communities it is generally held as a truth that reading of fiction develops the empathic ability of the reader. This opinion is also expressed in political guiding documents for the school system and cultural sector. This paper's main hypothesis is that there is no assembled theoretic ground for the statement that reading of fiction develops the empathic ability. The investigation consists of two parts, the first being theoretical and the second empirical. Definitions of what empathy and reading is, are reviewed in the first part.