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.

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.

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.

The aim of this study is to analyse how children?s literature for ages 6 ? 8 is adapted to pupils with reading difficulties. The material used for analysis in this study is six children?s books, examining some of the criteria by which a text is classified as easy-to-read. The result of the analysis shows that there is a possibility for pupils with reading difficulties to read something other than easy-to-read literature if it is carefully selected.

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.

The new technology brings new opportunities for the language. The language, which is used when chatting or messaging, is full of linguistic devices, which facilitates writing and saves time and space. The purpose of my investigation is to find out if the chat- and- messaging- language is affecting the students' way of writing in school.To find out about this I have examined 79 essays written by students in grade 9 during the national test 2006. I have also to found out if the occurrence of these features differed between boys and girls. In addition, I have let the same students who have written the essays answer questions regarding their chatting- and messaging- habits.The conclusions I have attained through my investigation shows that 58 % of the students are using features which are typical in chat and messaging language.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how important computers are for text production in upper secondary school level, and to find out what attitudes some students have towards computers in writing classes. I have let 44 students in the Swedish gymnasium course Swedish B write an argumentative essay. Half of the group wrote using paper and pencil, and the other half used computers. The essays were graded, and the language and length of the texts were analyzed. The students also filled in a questionnaire with questions on computer aided writing classes.The results showed that the texts that were written with computers contained a significant larger amount of words and fewer spelling mistakes.

Gendered reading has a history of intense debate and negotiation. In this essay I will examine how feminine and masculine reading was construed in the early 19th century through three Swedish texts that all give a didactic, moral and instructive opinion about gendered reading. They consist of an advice manual, a collection of letters and a periodical featuring an assortment of suitable reading material, all published between the years of 1808-1815 and directed to a female audience. As the male sex was generally considered the invisible, desirable norm and the female sex tended to be viewed as deviant and problematic, gendered discussions are inclined to focus on the latter. I will argue that female reading is largely construed in relation to the bourgeois marriage while the male is construed in terms of citizenship.

AbstractThe aim of the study was to examine how a school team works with formative assessment in compulsory school for pupils with intellectual disabilities. The study had a particular focus on formative assessment in relation to pupils with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities. Since there is a lack of research within the field of formative assessment and pupils with moderate and severe disabilities this study may contribute to new knowledge in this field. A sociocultural perspective has been used as a theoretical framework. A central concept in the sociocultural perspective is that people develop knowledge in interaction with other people and that communication and language is important.  The methodical framework was inspired by an ethnographic approach and the empirical material was concocted by participatory observations and by interviews.

SammanfattningMed hjälp av intervjuer har jag studerat vad nio lärare på sex olika skolor anser om skönlitteraturens betydelse för den tidiga läs- och skrivutvecklingen. I forskningen finns inget svar på vilken metod som anses bäst för att lära sig läsa och skriva. Där beskrivs däremot att mycket beror på lärarens personliga kunskaper. De svar jag fått beskriver ett mycket stort engagemang hos samtliga lärare men att synsättet skiljer sig åt en del. I olika hög utsträckning arbetar man med skönlitteratur i undervisningen.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the narrative in You are a bad man, mr Gum! to be able to understand and explain the intermedial aspects of the work. I assume an intermedial, narratological and reception theory perspective in my analysis. The method of close reading is used combined with a reader-oriented perspective. I examine the medial aspects of the chosen work through the pictures, the text, and the iconicity of the typographical pattern of the text. To reach my goal, the following questions are dealt with: What is the character of the narration? How do the various media interact in the production of meaning? What is the relationship between the text and the implicit reader? What is the narratological difference between reading the book aloud and silently? The theoretical framework f the paper consists of narratological and intermedial theories.

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 master?s thesis is to examine how pupils with Swedish as a second language and school librarians perceive the concept of pleasure of reading and the feeling of being a part of society. Our research is based on qualitative interviews with eight students in grades 6-9 and from two different schools. We have also interviewed two school librarians in these two libraries. As a method of analysis, we used phenomenography because it is the informants' perceptions of the phenomenon of pleasure of reading that we investigate.

This essay will treat questions regarding why we should read literature, more specifically fiction, in schools. My issues regards how the curriculums of the swedish school subject legitimizes reading of literature, and my main focus is on the curriculums themselves. As a complement, I have completed three interviews with professional teachers to see how they legitimize reading for the pupils and for themselves. I have also discussed the potential democratic values of teaching and reading literature in schools, and I discuss my results in relation to the "values" of the swedish schools. My study is based on a study of the old curriculums, completed by Magnus Persson in 2007.