Promoting reading 1
staff, which raises questions of budget and resou
rces. The staff who carry out home visits need a range of skills, such as a good ability to observe, listen and ask questions. Swedish research has indicated that language stimulation programme activities that include home visits can increase parental engagement in the child’s intellectual and language development, and also have a positive effect on the child’s language and general development. In Sweden, public libraries have for decades collaborated with child health centres to distribute free books and organise parent groups. Another important form of collaboration for the language development and reading motivation of very young children is between the library and the preschool. Public libraries play an important role in children’s access to literature and as an additional source of pedagogical skills. Collaborations between public libraries and preschools are a matter of course in many parts of Sweden. However, there are studies that show that many preschools do not see their local library as an obvious collaborator. There are also major differences between preschools in respect of the time they spend on reading aloud to the children. Studies have also indicated that “reading quiet time” is the most common context in which reading occurs, and it has been noted that this thereby reduces reading to a “disciplinary measure”. It has also been noted that there are big differences in access to books at preschools. Whereas some preschools are well equipped, others have relatively few books and some preschools have no books at all. Preschools are not subject to Sweden’s Education Act in terms of access to school libraries, which makes the issue of access to literature in the preschool a matter of particular concern. Several initiatives have been taken to strengthen the position of literature in preschools. The section on early reading stimulation in the third chapter of this book describes some good examples of collaborations between libraries and preschool. These include preschools with a literature profile, where stories and reading literature are a consistent theme in daily activities. Reading aloud is one of the most important methods used to stimulate children’s language development and generate interest in books and reading. The positive effects of reading aloud on children’s language development are well documented. Reading aloud helps to enrich children’s vocabularies and their capacity to express themselves. Reading aloud can also awaken an early interest in books and reading and for children it can mean a first encounter with literature as an art form. Researchers have been able to conclude that children who have been read to at home read more on their own, and a positive correlation has also been found between reading aloud and good grades in school. There is plenty of evidence of the positive impact of reading aloud and one can add to this the fact that parents, by reading aloud to their children, convey a positive attitude to books and reading which can be crucial for the children’s reading development. A variation on reading aloud that is often advocated consists of a dialogue between the children and/or between the children and the reader, before, after and during the reading. This method involves reading with, rather than to, children. A common name for this method of reading aloud is dialogic reading. There are studies in which the effects of reading aloud on children’s language development have been measured and compared with the effects of dialogic reading and other, less interactive forms of reading aloud. According to a meta-analysis of this kind of research, dialogic reading has the biggest impact on language development for groups of younger children. But 102