D.Phil. / Reading constitutes a major part of academic activities especially at tertiary level where acquisition of knowledge depends on written texts. For university students in particular, key sources of new knowledge in domains of science, for example, are often textbooks, reference books, journal articles and laboratory manuals. In reading the texts, students are expected either to develop or to review information on their own. Unfortunately many first-year university students have difficulties understanding and acquiring knowledge from texts effectively and efficiently. This problem is often more pronounced among students who have to read through English second language (ESL). This study was prompted by complaints from the University of the North first-year physics lecturers that their first-year students were experiencing serious problems with accessing information from their prescribed texts. A provisional assumption made is that lack of reading strategies combined with lack of cognitive skills made worse by poor English language proficiency are to a great extent responsible for this failure. The aim of this study, therefore, is to explore the reading behaviour of the University of the North first-year students in as far as the learning of physics is concerned. Results show that these students do indeed lack cognitive and metacognitive strategies and that their English proficiency level is below what is expected of them at first year. They are therefore ill-prepared to deal with their prescribed text (physics) through this medium. This study recommends that students should be given explicit instruction in strategy selection and use but that these should be sufficiently flexible to be utilized in a variety of contexts and must eventually be owned by the students themselves for later use. The ultimate goal is for students to use the strategy without guidance from their lecturer

In diesem Sommer fand in 60 Bibliotheken Sachsens eine besondere Aktion statt: der Buchsommer Sachsen. Unter dem Motto „Beim Lesen tauch ich ab!“ sollten vor allem Schülerinnen und Schüler ab der 5. Klasse in die Bibliotheken gelockt werden. Dafür wurden mehr als 100 neue Buchtitel gekauft, die exklusiv für die Jugendlichen während der Aktion zum Ausleihen und Lesen zur Verfügung standen. Bei der Auswahl der Titel stand der Fokus auf Neuerscheinungen des Jugendbuchmarktes, die vor allem Mittelschüler und Jungs ansprechen sollten. Aber auch für Mädchen und Leseratten sollte etwas dabei sein. Präsentiert in einem separaten Regal und erkennbar am Buchsommer-Aufkleber warteten spannende Abenteuerromane, aufregende Fantasy-Geschichten und lustige Comic-Romane auf ihre Leser. Die gelesenen Buchsommer- Bücher und deren Bewertung wurden bei der Rückgabe im Leselogbuch notiert. Wer mindestens drei Bücher während der Sommerferien gelesen hatte, erhielt bei einer großen Abschlussparty sein Zertifikat. Dank der Förderung des Sächsischen Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst und der Organisation durch den dbv Landesverband Sachsen e.V. konnte diese besondere Sommeraktion unter der Schirmherrschaft des Sächsischen Staatsministeriums für Kultus in 60 sächsischen Bibliotheken statt finden. Unterstützt durch die regionalen Bildungsagenturen nahmen neben den Großstadtbibliotheken in Dresden und Leipzig auch Stadt- und Kreisbibliotheken wie Chemnitz und Gemeindebibliotheken wie in Niederwiesa an der Aktion teil und konnten zahlreiche Buchsommer-Teilnehmer in ihrer Bibliothek begrüßen.

As Swedish students´ reading comprehension is in decline and reading is getting less space in the lives of children and young people, a large responsibility is placed on the school to promote students’ motivation to read. For that reason, the purpose of this study has been to examine how teachers promote students’ motivation to read fiction. The study has been conducted by using a model called Model of reading development to observe aspects of teacher’s actions and teacher’s choice of activities and tasks, which can be considered to promote student’s motivation to read. The study has been based on seven concepts, and these have been used as criteria for what can be considered to promote students’ motivation to read. In order to explore how teachers promote students’ motivation to read, this model has been used to analyse observations of four teachers’ who teach the subject of Swedish grades 4-6. The results show that all concepts, in the model called instructional processes, are somehow expressed at some point in the four observed teachers’ lessons. The study also shows that many different aspects of the teachers’ action and activities can function as motivational promotion and the observations showed that these activities and actions vary depending on the type of lesson and its planning. Regarding to what teachers do which can be considered as motivational, the study found that all teachers used modelling for students and activities were students had to collaborate with each other. All the teachers in the study also gave the students praise for effort and progress.

Reading is a fundamental skill in our modern society; being able to read with comprehension and fluency is an important skill in all core academic subjects. Reading teachers are charged with the task to analyze student data in order to drive their instructional decisions. Informal Reading Inventories (IRIs) are one type of an informal reading assessment that teachers can use in the classroom to learn about student reading behaviors and drive instruction. Informal Reading Inventories assess fluency and comprehension. Research suggests that fluency and comprehension have a reciprocal relationship; meaning, if you improve one skill, you improve the other skill simultaneously (DeVries, 2011). This study explored how pre-service teachers, college students in an education program, and in-service teachers, veteran teachers, analyzed data from various IRIs. This study also explored how three separate IRIs, the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI), the Basic Reading Inventory (BRI), and the Analytical Reading Inventory (ARI), compared to one another. There were four participants in this study: two undergraduate students in an elementary education program reading class and two veteran classroom teachers. This study found that the grade level readability of the passages are inconsistent with the reading level they claim to be. An inconsistency like this is something to note as many teachers only use these resources on which they were trained during their college education. This study also found that the length of the IRI passages had an effect on the student’s words correct per minute (WCPM); the longer the passage, the lower the WCPM. This is probably due to the fact that students need more time to process a passage for the sake of comprehension.

Studien undersöker den individuella läsningen som undervisningsmetod. Syftet är att åskådliggöra lärares och elevers upplevelser av individuell läsning, med fokus på utformning och kunskapsinhämtning, för att sedan jämföra och belysa relationen dem emellan. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkter är konstruktivism och fenomenologi, vilka betonar vikten av elevernas intresse och motivation för att lärande ska uppstå, samt att individernas uttalanden om det studerade fenomenet är sanningsbärande fakta. Studiens material består av 15 ljudinspelningar, där två lärare och 13 elever intervjuats om deras upplevelser av individuell läsning. Materialet transkriberades och analyserades med hjälp av en innehållsanalys. Resultatet visar att upplevelserna av den individuella läsningens utformning i vissa avseenden skiljde sig åt mellan lärarna och eleverna. Eleverna upplevde att det inte läggs så stor vikt vid den individuella läsningen, en upplevelse som inte delades av lärarna. Litteraturen var en av de faktorer eleverna upplevde som avgörande för att den individuella läsningen skulle fungera som lärandeaktivitet. Eleverna upplevde att motivation var det viktigaste för att utveckla kunskaper och läsintresse genom individuell läsning. Lärarna upplevde att eleverna genom den individuella läsningen skulle få möjlighet att utveckla läsintresse, läsförmåga, läsförståelse samt språklig förmåga. Eleverna menade att de genom att läsa utvecklade språklig förmåga, läsförmåga, läsförståelse, föreställningsvärldar samt skaffade sig faktakunskaper genom litteraturen. Jämförelsen mellan lärarnas och elevernas upplevelser visar att de i många fall liknar varandra. Tankarna skiljde sig i att eleverna upplevde att de utvecklade faktakunskaper och sina föreställningsvärldar, vilket lärarna inte nämnde.

In her thesis Fantasy Genre of the Eleven Years Old Readers the author is concerned with the education of fantasy category for 11 years old pupils, respectively for the fifth year of the primary school. Centre of work consists in practical part, where the author comments and reflects her suggestions of past lectures based on extracts from fantasy books. She indicates how to interpose fantasy genre to students in literary education, for them to be able to gradually disclose and understand the meaning of the text (process of discovery and creation), share and evaluate important thoughts arising from it and subsequently apply these in real life. Apart from that are some accomplished plans of her lectures, directed also towards personality and social development of the individuals. Keywords Literary educations, fantasy genre, work with text, 11 years old pupils, literature for children, reading education.

Donnerstag, 13 Uhr. Ein Anruf erreicht eine Bibliothekarin während ihres Auskunftsdienstes: „Ich würde gerne mit meiner 6. Klasse in der nächsten Woche zu Ihnen kommen. Wir haben den Themenkomplex „Sächsische Sagen“ gerade abgeschlossen und nun – vor den Ferien – möchten wir noch etwas Schönes zum Abschluss unternehmen. Ich habe an eine Sagenlesestunde in der Bibliothek gedacht.“ Bibliothekarin: „“Waren die Schüler schon einmal bei uns?“ Lehrerin: „“Das weiß ich leider nicht, ich habe die Klasse gerade erst übernommen.“ Wenn die Bibliothekarin Glück hat, findet sie in ihren Unterlagen ein Konzept zum Thema. Ansonsten erarbeitet sie die Veranstaltung für die Klasse bis zur nächsten Woche neu. Vorsichtshalber geht sie davon aus, dass die Schüler noch nie in der Bibliothek waren. [...]

The thesis deals with a support of children's reading. The work is aimed to factors and actors influencing reading education. The first part solves theoretical definition and the meaning of reading. Primarily there are explained two important terms related to the topic - reading and a reader. Further it is proceeding by attention given to different phases of reading education before and during school attendance. Primarily three environments influencing reading literacy were observed. These include family, school and public library. Furthermore, national representative projects supporting reading primarily in libraries are shortly presented at this thesis as well. The second part is focused on the Municipal Library of Prague, specifically Smichov branch and its activities. In this part are charted various programmes for children. Repeated activities for parents with children or for children alone are observed. Also, events for groups of preschool and school children are described. The important part of presented work deals with survey of cooperation between Smichov branch and local schools. The research results are to determine practical experience of teachers from these schools in activities of Smichov branch and in their cooperation with this library.