According to international and national literacy studies (PISA, PIRLS) Swedish boys are inferior to Swedish girls when it comes to reading. There can be numerous reasons to that statement. One is that Swedish teachers require more knowledge about communication as an important component in literacy. In spite of this shortcoming, Swedish girls manage to gain sufficient literacy. Why is that? The aim of this survey was to examine if there were any differences between girls and boys regarding communication skills when they begin in school.The main questions taken in account were:Which differences and/or similarities in communication skills are discernible between boys and girls this particular preschool?How do boys and girls communicate with each other in different room contexts on this particular preschool?           To be able to answer the questions, I adopted observations and audio recordings from children aged five.

More and more preschools are choosing to reduce the sugar consumption. The reason is, inter alia, the increase of weight in the community, but there is also research showing that sugar is harmful to children. The discussions on sugar and children are also a hot media topic.I have chosen to use a qualitative method, interviews, to gather material for the essay. I have interviewed a teacher and a cook in three different preschools, in different municipalities. I have also looked at their various nutrition policies to see how the guidelines for their work on diet and health look like.

This study is about differences in knowledge regarding animals. In the study five year old preschool children from a city were compared to five year old preschool children in the suburbs with multicultural background. The study is also about where children´s knowledge about animals comes from and how educators can make a positive difference. To find this out standardized interviews was used on 23 children from four different preschools, two preschools in the suburbs with 15 children and two preschools in the city with 13 children. A survey was sent out to the educators within these preschools to gather background information on what the children do regarding animals.

AbstractThe aim of this study is to retrieve knowledge about how teachers in the preschool talk about children?s participation and influence in the work of pedagogical documentation, and what they think about children?s integrity associated whit it. I have used qualitative interview as method, and I have interviewed five teachers from four different preschools. The result from my study shows that the teachers don?t see so much of children?s participations and influence in the work of pedagogical documentation.

More and more preschools are choosing to reduce the sugar consumption. The reason is, inter alia, the increase of weight in the community, but there is also research showing that sugar is harmful to children. The discussions on sugar and children are also a hot media topic.I have chosen to use a qualitative method, interviews, to gather material for the essay. I have interviewed a teacher and a cook in three different preschools, in different municipalities. I have also looked at their various nutrition policies to see how the guidelines for their work on diet and health look like.

AbstractThe purpose of my study was to examine how four social studies teachers in upper secondary school interprets the democratic educational mission and core values, and if they believe that the same values are tools to influence the students' democratic approach and if they think it is possible. It is also the study's minor purpose to make an analysis of my findings and previous research in the area to explain any similarities or differences in the social studies teacher's interpretation and practice of the democratic educational mission and core values. I used qualitative semi-structured interviews as a method in which the interview questions were based on my research questions. The two criteria I had for my sample of respondents was that there would be social studies teacher at a upper secondary school and that I wanted to have two of each sex. Their interpretation and how they think they practice the democratic educational mission and core values are similar.

This thesis is about a language-stimulating activity, called the Book Teddy, which take placein Markaryd, a small municipality in southern Sweden. The activity is described and someexamples given of the Book Teddy's visits to the homes of parents and their preschool children.Similar activities in Värnamo, Kumla and Borås, which have been inspired by the BookTeddy are also described.Facts about children's psychology, language development and child language illustrate theimportance of stimulating language acquisition in the early years. An important example is"The Bristol Study", a longitudinal study of preschool children.A questionnaire was sent to 93 parents, whose children were bom in 1991. 53 parents or57% answered. The analysis was made out of these 53 questionnaires.

Allt fler barn upplever skolmatematiken som ett svårt ämne, något som väcker tankar och reflektioner. Jag utgår från att det är viktigt att redan i förskolan förbereda ett arbetssätt så att barnens förståelse för matematik utvidgas. Syftet med min studie är att lyfta fram förskollärarens roll i arbetet med matematiken i förskolan. Jag har all anledning till att utgå från begreppen språk, material och miljö för att få vetskap om förskollärarens roll. Jag anser att dessa begrepp är så sammanhängande med varandra och tillsammans utgör grunden för allt lärande. Studien är kvalitativ och består huvudsakligen av observationer som metod.

The purpose of this study was to find out what pedagogues in preschool think when it comes to children?s influence and how they do to give the children opportunity to express their thoughts and point of views and thereby influence their situation.The literature review treats the conception of the competent child and shows that having child perspective is important in meeting children. The literature review implies that participation and influence means sensitivity to children?s expressions and that pedagogues lets these expressions influence the activities in preschool. It is not about children always getting their ways, but that they are respected and are given space to think freely.Searching for pedagogues? thoughts on children?s influence and how they do for giving it, I interviewed six persons, working at six different preschools.

The purpose of my study is to describe how educators think about the play environment, the nature and its importance for the children's development and learning in preschool. The study is based on qualitative interviews with four active educators. The results of the study show that the teachers regarded the children's interests to a great extent when the different play environments were structured. They are also based on different themes that they have seen that the children were interested in, such as the fire station, hair salon or shop and café. Educators designing not only these play areas for different types of play for the children, but the different environments also have a learning purpose. The outdoor environment however attracts greater interest from children, to where they have more space to move freely in and outdoors, there are no limits to the children.

AbstractThis study deals with NTA in preschool and the purpose of the study is to find out how the NTA project works out in practice. In the empirical study I have used questionnaires as a research method (Trost2001). Questionnaires have been sent to Preschool teachers in the whole of Sweden to get as good a selection as possible. The responses received have been processed and analyzed. The results are reported below.The majority of the teachers thought it worked well to work with the NTA.

The goal of this study is to gain knowledge and understanding of how a teacher can apply mathematics with assistance from practical mathematics. Students? point of view on mathematics within practical mathematic lessons will also be examined. Four teachers from preschool to third grade in primary school were interviewed. 30 students from grades one to three were also surveyed. The study shows that teachers see a major benefit when practical mathematics is used in the theoretical teachings of mathematics.

In the school subject of the natural sciences it is imperative that the students are given opportunities to ?talk science?, since the dialogues that occur in the classroom have a significant importance for the students? abilities to engage in meaning-making in their learning process. Hence, the student and teacher interaction in the classroom and the feedback given there play a significant role in the students? learning process. The aim of this study is to contribute to the development of formative assessment tools that can mediate the students? meaning-making in natural sciences subjects in upper-secondary school.

The purpose with this study was to find out about the preschool toddler?s peer-cultures. I also wanted to understand how these peer-cultures were shown.My questions are as following:What is it that the children interpretive and reproduce in their play?How do children gain access to play?How do children exclude each other?What position of status can be seen in children´s play?I used observations as the method to find the answer to these questions. These observations where implemented during five occasions at two different preschools.

Mathematics is a central topic in today?s society. There are many different approaches each teacher has their own way. In this essay, I compare four teachers? mathematics teaching in two different countries with regard to ways of learning, particularly in the four operations.