Promoting reading 1
involved two researchers from the Gothenburg Scho
ol of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, whose aim was to study the project using qualitative methods. All the children participating in the project were given the book that the preschool worked with. The project also produced an article on pedagogical methods (von Baumgarten Lindberg 2013). Reading aloud Programmes and projects aimed at informing about the importance of and encourage reading aloud to children are numerous. There is good reason for this. In the mid-1980s, the U.S. Department of Education published a report entitled Becoming a Nation of Readers (Anderson 1985) – a report that came out of alarming school results. The report presented research on reading and recommendations were derived from the results. Since virtually everything in the school curriculum is based on reading, children’s reading should be viewed as both the cause of and solution to the problem, it was argued. The report underlines that the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is to read aloud to children. The positive effects of reading aloud on children’s language development are well documented. It is well known that reading aloud enriches children’s vocabulary and capacity to express themselves. Reading aloud is also a way of awakening an early interest in books and reading. Reading aloud can also be an introduction to how a story works. For children, at the very least reading aloud can mean a first encounter with literature as an art form. It has been pointed out that reading aloud in the home results in children reading on their own (see for example Krashen 2004). In the book Läsa högt för barn (Read aloud to children) (Dominkovic et al.2006), reading aloud is seen as one of the most important steps for creating reading motivation and a positive attitude to reading. The article Reading aloud to children: The Evidence (Duursma et al.2008) summarises a range of evidence for the positive impact of reading aloud. Among other things, it emphasises the importance of parents, by reading aloud to their children, conveying a positive attitude to books and reading, which can be crucial for their reading development. The research has also drawn attention to the link between reading aloud and student achievement. The importance of reading aloud has been stressed by Wells (1986), for example, who investigated the relationship between early experiences of written language and later school success. A comprehensive study that claims to be the first to investigate the long-term effects of reading for pleasure over time has been conducted at the Institute of Education at the University of London (Sullivan & Brown 2013). According to this study, where the reading behaviour of close to 6000 children was investigated, children whose parents have regularly read aloud to them score better on tests that measure vocabulary, spelling and mathematics than children whose parents did not spend time reading aloud to them. The question is, of course, whether reading aloud alone caused these positive results, or if children whose parents regularly read aloud to them have also been positively impacted by other factors. A person who reads aloud with feeling can bring the text to life, which can be a particular asset for children with reading difficulties. Through reading aloud, children who can read can access texts that they do not yet have the capacity to read themselves. Reading aloud is also a way of being part of a story community, of sharing a common 43