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 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.

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 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..

The main thing we wanted to find out with this thesis was, can reading aloud help the natural language development. We also wanted to know how libraries in Sweden work with reading aloud and if children with reading and writing problems are being helped by being read to. We also wanted to find out what authoritarians on literature think a good reading-aloud novel should contain. To find this out we decided to do a literature study, we have taken part of a number of authoritarian opinions on this matter and we also studied some theories on this subject. We also decided to do a couple of interviews to exemplify how regular libraries work with reading aloud.

This thesis is structured as a combined empirical and literary study. The aim is to investigate how children at the age of 11-12 years reflect on their readings of fiction and how these reflections relate to the librarians' perspective of a child's reading ability and reading development. Qualitative interviews with children and librarians constitute the empirical part. Research and theories are compared to the empirical part then placed into a more extensive context. How do children at the age of 11-12 years old reflect upon their reading of fiction and how do librarians relate themselves to this age? An analysis using interviews, research and theories is used to answer these questions.

This project investigates how four teachers work to encourage their pupils? love of reading. The study was conducted with the focus on teachers working in grades 1?3. The teacher?s view of their own role in furthering love of reading is also considered.It is hoped that other teachers will gain inspiration and ideas about how to work to motivate their pupils to read.To ascertain the four teachers? opinions and thoughts I conducted qualitative interviews which I then analysed with the help of sentence concentration.The study shows that the teachers work in similar ways, but what they all have in common is that they further love of reading through methods that include conversation and communication with classmates and teacher.

The aim of this master thesis is to discuss the access to literature and reading by mentally retarded persons, and how this is affected by library and care taking staffs awareness of mentally retarded persons needs of literature and reading. The reason why we decided to choose this essay topic, is that there is a lack of research about mentally retarded persons relationship with libraries, literature and reading in the field of library- and information science. This groups needs must be brought to sight, so that they can take part in the literature just as anyone else, on their own conditions. Our study involves interviews with four librarians, three reading representatives and a co-ordinator at the Easy-to-Read Foundation. We can establish that all of our informants prove to have significant knowledge about mentally retarded persons and their needs of literature and reading.

To find useful methods of reading instructions for pupils with Cerebral palsy is a complex but at the same time very challenging work. The main focus of this research lies in studying the pupils work focusing on special adaptation of educational materials and means of assistance for pupils with Cerebral palsy. In trying to get a complete picture of the work with the reading instruction I don?t think that it can be described only by studying the work, it also demands an inside look at the job the working group performs. My overarching purpose of this research is to try out measures to further develop the work with reading instruction for pupils with Cerebral palsy.