Promoting reading 1
In the study Att läsa och skriva i förskolan (Rea
ding and writing in the preschool) (2011) researcher Carina Fast emphasises the difference between teaching children to read and provoking an interest in reading among children. The book is based on a research study conducted at the Plantan preschool in Uppsala, where the staff work in a very conscious way to awaken the child’s curiosity about written language. How preschools work to generate interest in reading was also the subject of a study entitled Litteraturläsning i förskolan (Reading literature in the preschool) (Damber et al. 2013), which deals with the teaching staff at a number of preschools in Sweden working with “the extremely important task of firmly establishing curiosity about and enjoyment of reading”. The study is based on observations made by 40 students from Kristianstad University, Malmö University and Mid Sweden University, as part of the preschool teacher programme and the Förskollärarlyftet (continuing education programmes for preschool teachers). Over one week in December 2010, observations were carried out at 40 different preschools in different parts of the country and in different socio-economic areas. The authors, who work at the three universities mentioned above, discuss what function reading literature might have in theme-based activities in the preschool and provide concrete suggestions for planning based on themes to do with nature, animals, the environment or family constellations. Reading literature in the preschool stressed the importance of activities in the preschool that give the child an early relationship to the written language. This is especially important for children who come from homes where there is a lower frequency of reading and writing activities in the home. By way of introduction, the study concludes that reading literature appears to be a remarkably neglected area in many preschools’ educational activities. Below are some of the observations made in this study, with regard to the practicalities of reading literature at the 40 preschools, summarised in point form. Major differences were seen between the preschools with regard to the amount of time devoted to reading sessions: a reading session can last for anything between two and forty-five minutes. All in all, the authors considered the time spent on reading at the observed preschools to be very short. • The preschools that participated in the study gave the impression of lacking an underlying purpose or deliberate policy in their choice of literature, which instead appeared to be “quite haphazard”. There were only isolated examples of selecting literature with any connection to a more overarching theme. • The most common context in which reading took place was in what was termed “the reading quiet time”. The reading sessions appeared often to have a primarily “disciplinary function”. • There were very few conversations in connection with the reading, and where they did occur at all they were “rarely developed, put into a context, or otherwise related to themes that have to do with the child’s own lifeworld (Lebenswelt) or experiences/ experience”. • There was rarely any follow-up on the reading in the form of, for example, conversations, working with images or dramatizations. • The study also showed great variation in terms of the availability of books. While some preschools were well-endowed with books, others turned out to have relatively few books, or in one case none at all. 36