The aim of this thesis is to describe how to work with the development of language by reading aloud. I have chosen to look at the reading aloud project "Boksnurran" Book Wheel to see if it has influenced the daily work with reading in preschool. My questions are: How do they work with reading in preschool? Is the reading environment suitable? How do the staff describe their booktalks? What problems do they encounter? What can be improved? The thesis is based on qualitative interviews. Those interviewed have participated in "Book Wheel".

A reading campaign, Läsrörelsen The Reading Movement took place in Sweden 2000 until 2002. It was started by some adult educationists, and was supported by over 120 organizations. The aim of my study was to examine which messages the campaign wanted to mediate. As the campaign meant that reading was important for democracy, I wanted to study if there was any public debate about reading around 1900 when the democracy process had just started in Sweden. I have also studied if reading is regarded in the same way by the rulers of Sweden as it was by the campaign.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate in what ways librarians and schoolteachers can co-operate and combine their professional skills in order to help and motivate children with reading and writing disabilities, and how audio books can be useful in this work. The main source of information is interviews with teachers from ten schools in the province of Scania, southern Sweden. Those teachers, their schools and their local libraries all took part in a project spanning from 1993 to 1996, aiming at increasing the use of audio books in combination with the corresponding printed versions in work regarding the here addressed problem. This study was made with a qualitative empirical method supported by a normative theory belonging to the new institutional theory school. There are no statistical conclusions in the report.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of an intervention that focuses on phonics, decoding, reading speed and phonological awareness for 8-9 year old children in reading difficulties. Participants were selected on the basis of screening test results in grade one (decoding and reading comprehension). The participants were divided into two groups, an intervention group (A1, n=10 children) and a control group (A2, n=10). A1 received 30 minutes of intense reading instruction every day for six weeks from special educational needs teachers on top of their usual classroom based reading instruction. The control group received only their usual classroom-based reading instruction.

The aim of this master thesis is to examine readers? advice in weblogs - frequently modified web pages with a series of archived entries. We have chosen to study a specific kind of entry that contains information about a book of fiction- not for children and young adults - and the bloggers? comments regarding that same book. The entries are published in ten weblogs that all deal with literature and reading.

AbstractThe phonics is traditionally firmly established within reading acquisition in Swedish schools. The curriculum, Lpo 94 gives spacious independence regarding the question of method and we have to be aware of our own point of view when we are making the decision regarding the method of reading acquisition. Is it tradition or is it our linguistic point of view that is the determining factor? Through this study of literature, different publications from different times are being studied and the ideas and the linguistic point of view are being discussed. Through comparing between the curriculums that have been replaced of one another, and attending to linguistic discussion and research, we will be able to see a change in the linguistic point of view.

The purpose of this study was to compare reading development assessments with writing assessments to create an understanding about the relationship between the reading and writing ability of children. Another aim of the study was to look at other factors that cohere with the ability to read and write, such as background and socio-economic status. Our hypothesis was that explicit instruction in writing is necessary to develop good writing skills. We chose to conduct a quantitative study containing an inquiry, a dictation and a writing task. We compared our results with reading assessments based on a reading development schedule (LUS).

The aim of this research review is to map research about how children relate to nonfiction, and how adults, represented by parents, librarians and teachers, relate to children?s nonfiction and its possible purposes, and also the similarities and differences between them, according to current research.A theory of three different ways to look at reading is applied to the material concerning adults? views of children?s nonfiction. To show children?s views, themes are extracted from the research material, using an analysis model of four different ways to read.Studies show that most children as well as adults perceive children?s nonfiction in a traditional way as a means to gain knowledge and facts, and primarily related to school work.Nonfiction can also help children with reading difficulties to practise reading, by stimulating their interests. Many children read nonfiction because they prefer to read ?real stories? about actual people and events.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how children's librarians in public libraries use non-fiction books in their work to promote reading. My research questions are: What methods do children's librarians use för promoting non-fiction books? Are there children who can gain more from non-fiction books than other children do? Are there any differences in working with fiction and non-fiction books? To answer these questions I have interwieved five children's librarians about their methods, attitudes and thoughts on non-fiction books.The result shows that all of the librarians use non-fiction when it comes to promotion reading but not to the same extent. Some hardly use it at all, mainly because the schools that they are serving demands fiction books when practicing reading skills. while others use it but in less extent than fiction, as a way of separating the library reading from school work either because they want to keep the experience of reading in the library apart from school work or because they find it more efficient to do so.

The aim of this study was to investigate how four middle school teachers use and process the contents in read-aloud books, to stimulate the pupils interest in reading and increase reading comprehension. A qualitative approach was used to collect data, through interviews and observations. The findings show that all of the teachers work with read-aloud books regularly. The teachers state that read-aloud books have a positive effect on pupils language, vocabulary, reading comprehension, imagination and ability to reflect. The teachers have three distinctive purposes with read aloud-books, a moment of relaxation, create an interest in books and increase the pupils reading comprehension.

AbstractThe phonics is traditionally firmly established within reading acquisition in Swedish schools. The curriculum, Lpo 94 gives spacious independence regarding the question of method and we have to be aware of our own point of view when we are making the decision regarding the method of reading acquisition. Is it tradition or is it our linguistic point of view that is the determining factor? Through this study of literature, different publications from different times are being studied and the ideas and the linguistic point of view are being discussed. Through comparing between the curriculums that have been replaced of one another, and attending to linguistic discussion and research, we will be able to see a change in the linguistic point of view.

Finnish student have for several years proved to be successful in reading in international studies. This interview based study aims to describe how teachers in Finnish schools for Swedish speaking children are relating to reading and reading education during the first two years of schooling. The result shows that reading, reading training and reading comprehension are natural elements in all teaching during the first two years in school and that teaching is based on students? ability and interest. The teachers claim that they provide the students with varying opportunities to practice different kinds of reading.

This is a thesis about 9-12-year old girls and their leisure reading. The purpose of this study is to examine their reading experiences. The method we use is a combination of qualitative interviews and studies of literature. The thesis shows that there seem to be four basic needs in girls that can be satisfied by leisure reading; the need to develop language skills; the need to be entertained; the need to gain knowledge of the world and the need to get help to resolve personal issues. The interviews with nine girls show that they primarily read for fun and that the knowledge and insights that are conveyed in literature come in second place.

The main purpose of this study is to identify and compare classical pianists' understanding of sight-reading. Six pianists were interviewed, four professionals and two students. All of them concidered good sight-reading ability to be an advantage, especially when rehearsing, but most important is to be a good musicians performing music thoroghly gone through..

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to illuminate if the preventive practices and the identification of early signals about reading and writing difficulties is different between two Norwegian and two Swedish teachers' work in preschool. Research questions focused on the differences as well as similarities between Swedish and Norwegian educators working preventively current literacy in preschool, and their efforts when they identify signals to reading and writing difficulties.The study has been conducted through interviews with four female teachers, two who work  in Norway and two in Sweden.Swedish and Norwegian teachers work preventively on reading and writing, analysis resulted in three categories; books in text and pictures, words and rhyming chants and songs. No differences between Norwegian and Swedish pedagogues? prevention methods could be identified, however Norwegian teachers put more focus on rhythm and rhythmic pat exercises than the Swedish educators.The conclusions are that the Norwegian teachers mention more preventative approaches and early intervention for children with suspected dyslexia, than the Swedish teachers in the study makes. The Norwegian teachers also seem to have access to more expertise in connection with suspected dyslexia, compared to the Swedish teachers.