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..

ABSTRACT Behavioural problems are a compound conception for emotional difficulties at different levels. Individuals with behavioural problems could have difficulties with social relations, low self-esteem, anxiety and worry. The purpose with the examination was to describe how clients apprehend their behavioural problems and what they consider could be the causes of it. The examination was based on the qualitative interviews with 5 clients and a professional helper. We came in contact with our clients through our practice.

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.

The aim of this two years master?s thesis in library and information science is to study how children and librarians recommend books through the website Barnens bibliotek. In the scope of this aim it also tries to answer the following questions: What qualities in books do children and librarians respectively emphasize when they write book recommendations? How do they formulate the recommendations? And finally, how do their respective recommendations differ?To examine these aspects a total of 50 book recommendations were chosen and analysed through an hermeneutic approach. Out of these 50, 30 were written by children and 20 were written by librarians.

The overall aim of this study is to clarify the situation in school for children with language disorder from the parents? perspective.Data were collected through five interviews with parents who have children of different ages and with various diagnosis within the language disorder spectra. A qualitative method based on a narrative inquiry was used and each interview was based on a interview guide with the following themes: the child?s difficulties, starting school, the school?s pedagogy, homework, action plans, participation and the future.Each story has its own themes, but there are also themes that are common in all interviews. One common theme in the parents? stories is that school has a lack of knowledge when it comes to language disorder.

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.

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.

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.

The purpose of this thesis was to find out what experiences teachers have from using a class blog in teaching. What are the advantages and disadvantages by the use of blogs in education?I have used qualitative interviews with four teachers in grades 1 to 6 who have worked with a class blog in teaching between one and three years.The study has shown that teachers' experience is that the blog serves as motivation and promotes learning for many different pupils and that, together with other digital tools is more equal. The main benefits that teacher mention is the expanded concept of text that offers multiple forms of expression and the authentic reader, which makes it more real, important and meaningful. Other benefits that come up are that it helps students to see their learning and learn from and with each other.

This study conducts a qualitative examination based on five interviews with children?s librarians. The aim is to bring up and analyse the attitudes of the librarians towards reading promotion activities for children outside of school and investigate their experiences of participation in a summer reading challenge project.The first theory used to analyse is Jofrid Karner Smidt?s thesis of five different roles that a librarian can have on literary preferences. The second is her theory of how librarians view their promotion of literature.My interviews shows that the librarians in the study have a common opinion and enthusiasm regarding children's pleasure reading.

A pilot-study was used to investigate, types of assistance, assessed needs, outcomes and effects of special-needs assistance given to a subsample of compulsory school pupils in an effort to develop an evaluation strategy for identifying educational impacts of specific special-needs inputs.  Preliminary results indicate a tendency for postive outcomes for most pupils in the pilot group (n = 11) but also that many pupils have residual difficulties.  Pupils with residual difficulties mostly required special education asssitance with Maths, English or Swedish.  More pupils also needed support with behavioral difficulties.  More research and an expanding knowledge base is required in order to effectively evaluate outcomes of teacher support.  Schools need help in devising different methods of assistance and particularly for pupils with behavioral difficulties..

Att eleverna får lära sig att skriva är ett av grundskolans viktigaste uppdrag. Under vår verksamhetsförlagda utbildning under tiden på Lärarhögskolan har vi sett att mycket av undervisningen under de första åren i grundskolan ägnas åt att läsa, samtala och skriva. Det har fått oss att fundera kring hur lärare fortsätter att arbeta med skrivandet. Vårt syfte med den här studien är att fördjupa förståelsen för och utveckla kunskaper om hur lärare ser på den fortsatta skrivutvecklingen i skolår 4-6. Syftet är också att utveckla förståelse för vad lärare anser vara viktig kunskap i ämnet.

Vi har studerat ett material som syftar till ett tidigt samarbete mellan hem och skola för att upptäcka barn med läs- och skrivsvårigheter. Studien har genomförts som en komparativ fallstudie, där två vitt skilda kommuner utgjort grunden. Fallbeskrivningarna består av intervjuer, fältanteckningar och delresultat från en större enkätundersökning som genomförts av materialets upphovsmän. Genom att jämföra två olika fall hoppades vi kunna se och beskriva likheter och skillnader och därmed kunna dra slutsatser kring materialets effekter på ett djupare plan. Undersökningen visar på två scenarion gällande effekterna av materialet, ett positivt och ett negativt.

The aim of this thesis was to understand and illuminate how readingpromotion projects can be carried out, what sort of activities they mightcontain and what sort of lasting impressions they might make. We choseto examine reading promotion projects because we consider thepromotion of reading and literacy a vital and important part of thelibraries work. The study took place at the city library of Uddevalla andthe projects included in the study were all directed towards children andyouth.The theory used in the thesis was Aidan Chambers?s model of theReading Circle which consists of the four themes of selection,?reading?, response and the enabling adult. Methods used were semistructuredinterview, document studies and observation.The results show that reading promotion projects benefit from cooperationbetween the adults involved and that education of the adultsin order to indirectly target the children is an effective way of spreadingthe love of reading.