Studiens syfte är att synliggöra hur några förskollärare arbetar med barnlitteratur i verksamheten för att främja barns språkutveckling. Vi har intervjuat sex verksamma förskollärare i två närliggande kommuner. Det insamlade materialet har analyserats utifrån ett sociokulturellt perspektiv och dess begrepp: scaffolding, proximal utvecklingszon och medierande redskap.  Resultatet visar att förskollärarna anser att barnlitteratur fyller en viktig funktion i språkutvecklingen och att förskolläraren behöver ha ett stöttande förhållningssätt gentemot barnen, där pedagogen uppmuntrar barnen till läsning, är en aktiv lyssnare till barnens tankar och utmanar barnen på deras nivå i boksamtalen. Barnlitteraturen som förekommer på förskolan är utvald av pedagogerna på förskolan utifrån kartläggningar av barnens intressen, teman som förskolan arbetar med och de språkutvecklingsmässiga behov som finns. En utmaning som förskollärarna nämner är att hitta rätt bok till rätt barn, där boken är vare sig för lätt eller för svår för att barnet ska nå sin proximala utvecklingszon. Förskollärare använder barnlitteraturen som ett redskap för att arbeta med fler ämnesområden, exempelvis matematik och skapande.  En slutsats av studien är att förskollärarna anser att högläsning med boksamtal har en stor betydelse för barns språkutveckling, men att stora barngrupper och tidsbrist påverkar hur barnlitteraturen prioriteras i förskolan. / AbstractThe purpose of the study is to highlight how some preschool teachers workwith children's literature in their activities to promote children's languagedevelopment. We have interviewed six active preschool teachers in twoneighbouring municipalities. The collected material has been analysed from asocio-cultural perspective and its concepts: scaffolding, proximal developmentzone and mediating tools.The results show that the preschool teachers believe that children's literaturefulfils an important function in language development and that the preschoolteacher needs to have a supportive approach towards the children, where theeducator encourages the children to read, is an active listener to the children'sthoughts and challenges the children at their level in the book discussions. Thechildren's literature used in the preschool is selected by the preschool teachersbased on surveys of the children's interests, the themes that the preschool workswith and the language development needs that exist. One challenge mentionedby preschool teachers is finding the right book for the right child, where thebook is neither too easy nor too difficult for the child to reach their zone ofproximal development. Preschool teachers use children's literature as a tool towork with more subject areas, such as maths and creativity.One conclusion of the study is that the preschool teachers believe that readingaloud with book discussions is of great importance for children's languagedevelopment, but that large groups of children and lack of time affect howchildren's literature is prioritised in preschool.Keywords: Children's literature, Language development, Preschool, Readingaloud

Introdução: O presente estudo comparou o desempenho de crianças brasileiras com distúrbio específico de linguagem (DEL), transtorno fonológico (TF) e desenvolvimento típico de linguagem (DTL) em memória de curto prazo e operacional nas modalidades verbal e visuoespacial. A hipótese central do estudo era de que o grupo com distúrbio específico de linguagem teria um desempenho aquém do observado nos demais grupos, nos dois tipos de memória e nas duas modalidades, enquanto o grupo com transtorno fonológico teria prejuízos apenas na modalidade verbal. Métodos: Participaram do estudo 60 crianças de ambos os gêneros e com faixa etária entre 5 anos e 6 anos e 11 meses, divididas igualmente em três grupos, com base em seu desenvolvimento de fala e linguagem. Todas apresentavam audição normal e rendimento intelectual não verbal adequado. Para a caracterização dos sujeitos, foram avaliados vocabulário expressivo, fonologia, discriminação auditiva para fonemas e nível socioeconômico. A avaliação experimental foi composta pelo teste de memória de curto prazo fonológica e por oito tarefas do Automated Working Memory Assessment, que avalia a combinação dos dois tipos de memória e suas duas modalidades (curto prazo verbal, operacional verbal, curto prazo visuoespacial e operacional visuoespacial). Resultados: A comparação entre os tipos e as modalidades de memória revelou que os três grupos apresentaram o mesmo padrão. Na modalidade verbal, o melhor desempenho ocorreu na memória de curto prazo, enquanto na modalidade visuoespacial, ocorreu na memória operacional. Já na memória de curto prazo, o melhor desempenho ocorreu nas tarefas verbais, enquanto na memória operacional, ocorreu nas tarefas visuoespaciais. A comparação entre os grupos revelou que os sujeitos com DEL tiveram desempenho inferior aos dois outros grupos em todas as combinações de tipos e modalidades de memória, com exceção da memória de curto prazo verbal e operacional visuoespacial, nas quais obtiveram desempenho similar ao grupo com TF. Já os sujeitos com TF tiveram desempenho inferior ao grupo com DTL apenas na modalidade verbal. A idade e o nível socioeconômico não demonstraram influenciar tal desempenho, porém, o rendimento intelectual não verbal, o vocabulário expressivo, a fonologia e a discriminação auditiva foram identificados como variáveis mediadoras. Por fim, a análise discriminante evidenciou que essas medidas foram capazes de discriminar corretamente 78,3% dos sujeitos, sendo que 75% foram corretamente classificados como DEL, 65% como TF e 95% como DTL. Conclusões: Ainda que os três grupos tenham demonstrado padrão semelhante de desempenho quanto ao tipo e modalidade de memória, o grupo com DEL apresentou um prejuízo que não se restringe à modalidade verbal, enquanto o grupo com TF demonstrou prejuízo exclusivamente na modalidade verbal. Tais achados confirmam a hipótese central formulada e contribuem para a compreensão da extensão e dos possíveis mediadores do comprometimento da memória de indivíduos com DEL. Descritores: memória; memória de curto prazo; linguagem infantil; linguagem; desenvolvimento da linguagem; transtornos do desenvolvimento da linguagem; transtornos da linguagem; fonoaudiologia; distúrbios da fala / Introduction: The present study compared the performances of Brazilian children with specific language impairment (SLI), speech sound disorder (SSD) and typical language development (TLD) on verbal and visuospatial measures of short-term (STM) and working memory (WM). The central hypothesis of the study was that children with SLI would present poorer performances on both types and domains of memory when compared to the other groups, while children with SSD would present deficits restricted to the verbal domain. Methods: Participants were sixty children aged 5- to 6-years of both genders. Participants were divided into three groups based on their speech and language development. All children presented hearing thresholds within normal limits and presented appropriate nonverbal intellectual performance. In order to characterize the children, we assessed expressive vocabulary, phonology, auditory phoneme discrimination and socioeconomic status. The experimental assessment was composed by a phonological short-term memory test and by eight tasks based on the Automated Working Memory Assessment. This battery assesses both types and domains of memory (verbal STM, verbal WM, visuospatial STM and visuospatial WM). Results: The comparison between types and domains of memory revealed that groups exhibited the same pattern: on verbal domain they performed better on STM while on visuospatial domain they performed better on WM; on STM they performed better on verbal tasks while on WM they performed better on visuospatial tasks. Intergroup comparison revealed that children with SLI performed worse than their peers on both types and domains of memory, except on verbal STM and visuospatial WM in which they performed similarly to children with SSD. In contrast, children with SSD performed worse than children with TLD only on verbal domain. Age and socioeconomic status showed no influence on children`s performance, but nonverbal intellectual performance, expressive vocabulary, phonology and auditory phoneme discrimination were identified as covariates. Finally, discriminant analysis indicated that these measures of memory were able to significantly discriminate between 79.3% of the all children, correctly classifying 75% of children with SLI, 65% of SSD and 95% of TLD. Conclusion: Although all groups presented a similar pattern in performance regarding types and memory domains, children with SLI exhibited deficits that were not restricted to the verbal domain, while children with SSD showed deficits restricted to this domain exclusively. These findings support the central hypothesis formulated for this study and contribute to the better understanding of comprehensiveness and of factors that might mediate memory impairment of children with SLI

Introdução: O presente estudo comparou o desempenho de crianças brasileiras com distúrbio específico de linguagem (DEL), transtorno fonológico (TF) e desenvolvimento típico de linguagem (DTL) em memória de curto prazo e operacional nas modalidades verbal e visuoespacial. A hipótese central do estudo era de que o grupo com distúrbio específico de linguagem teria um desempenho aquém do observado nos demais grupos, nos dois tipos de memória e nas duas modalidades, enquanto o grupo com transtorno fonológico teria prejuízos apenas na modalidade verbal. Métodos: Participaram do estudo 60 crianças de ambos os gêneros e com faixa etária entre 5 anos e 6 anos e 11 meses, divididas igualmente em três grupos, com base em seu desenvolvimento de fala e linguagem. Todas apresentavam audição normal e rendimento intelectual não verbal adequado. Para a caracterização dos sujeitos, foram avaliados vocabulário expressivo, fonologia, discriminação auditiva para fonemas e nível socioeconômico. A avaliação experimental foi composta pelo teste de memória de curto prazo fonológica e por oito tarefas do Automated Working Memory Assessment, que avalia a combinação dos dois tipos de memória e suas duas modalidades (curto prazo verbal, operacional verbal, curto prazo visuoespacial e operacional visuoespacial). Resultados: A comparação entre os tipos e as modalidades de memória revelou que os três grupos apresentaram o mesmo padrão. Na modalidade verbal, o melhor desempenho ocorreu na memória de curto prazo, enquanto na modalidade visuoespacial, ocorreu na memória operacional. Já na memória de curto prazo, o melhor desempenho ocorreu nas tarefas verbais, enquanto na memória operacional, ocorreu nas tarefas visuoespaciais. A comparação entre os grupos revelou que os sujeitos com DEL tiveram desempenho inferior aos dois outros grupos em todas as combinações de tipos e modalidades de memória, com exceção da memória de curto prazo verbal e operacional visuoespacial, nas quais obtiveram desempenho similar ao grupo com TF. Já os sujeitos com TF tiveram desempenho inferior ao grupo com DTL apenas na modalidade verbal. A idade e o nível socioeconômico não demonstraram influenciar tal desempenho, porém, o rendimento intelectual não verbal, o vocabulário expressivo, a fonologia e a discriminação auditiva foram identificados como variáveis mediadoras. Por fim, a análise discriminante evidenciou que essas medidas foram capazes de discriminar corretamente 78,3% dos sujeitos, sendo que 75% foram corretamente classificados como DEL, 65% como TF e 95% como DTL. Conclusões: Ainda que os três grupos tenham demonstrado padrão semelhante de desempenho quanto ao tipo e modalidade de memória, o grupo com DEL apresentou um prejuízo que não se restringe à modalidade verbal, enquanto o grupo com TF demonstrou prejuízo exclusivamente na modalidade verbal. Tais achados confirmam a hipótese central formulada e contribuem para a compreensão da extensão e dos possíveis mediadores do comprometimento da memória de indivíduos com DEL. Descritores: memória; memória de curto prazo; linguagem infantil; linguagem; desenvolvimento da linguagem; transtornos do desenvolvimento da linguagem; transtornos da linguagem; fonoaudiologia; distúrbios da fala / Introduction: The present study compared the performances of Brazilian children with specific language impairment (SLI), speech sound disorder (SSD) and typical language development (TLD) on verbal and visuospatial measures of short-term (STM) and working memory (WM). The central hypothesis of the study was that children with SLI would present poorer performances on both types and domains of memory when compared to the other groups, while children with SSD would present deficits restricted to the verbal domain. Methods: Participants were sixty children aged 5- to 6-years of both genders. Participants were divided into three groups based on their speech and language development. All children presented hearing thresholds within normal limits and presented appropriate nonverbal intellectual performance. In order to characterize the children, we assessed expressive vocabulary, phonology, auditory phoneme discrimination and socioeconomic status. The experimental assessment was composed by a phonological short-term memory test and by eight tasks based on the Automated Working Memory Assessment. This battery assesses both types and domains of memory (verbal STM, verbal WM, visuospatial STM and visuospatial WM). Results: The comparison between types and domains of memory revealed that groups exhibited the same pattern: on verbal domain they performed better on STM while on visuospatial domain they performed better on WM; on STM they performed better on verbal tasks while on WM they performed better on visuospatial tasks. Intergroup comparison revealed that children with SLI performed worse than their peers on both types and domains of memory, except on verbal STM and visuospatial WM in which they performed similarly to children with SSD. In contrast, children with SSD performed worse than children with TLD only on verbal domain. Age and socioeconomic status showed no influence on children`s performance, but nonverbal intellectual performance, expressive vocabulary, phonology and auditory phoneme discrimination were identified as covariates. Finally, discriminant analysis indicated that these measures of memory were able to significantly discriminate between 79.3% of the all children, correctly classifying 75% of children with SLI, 65% of SSD and 95% of TLD. Conclusion: Although all groups presented a similar pattern in performance regarding types and memory domains, children with SLI exhibited deficits that were not restricted to the verbal domain, while children with SSD showed deficits restricted to this domain exclusively. These findings support the central hypothesis formulated for this study and contribute to the better understanding of comprehensiveness and of factors that might mediate memory impairment of children with SLI

The aim of this thesis is to verify sentence imitation as a clinical marker of specific language impairment while controlling memory and morphological richness account as an explanation of problems with acquisition of grammatical markers in preschool children with SLI (basis of these assumptions is explained in the theoretical part of this work). The practical part of this thesis is based on the existing research in Hungarian (Leonard et al., 2009). In contrast to results in Hungarian research the support of morphological richness account is only limited in Czech. Children with SLI were as accurate as younger typically developing children in completions of target forms of verbs and nouns, while completions of target verbs were more successful than completions of target nouns. Near miss errors were prevalent, but not without exception, and relationship between substitutions and frequency in non near-miss errors was not proved. The sentence imitation turned out as a good clinical marker of SLI.

Idag är en stor andel av eleverna i svensk skola flerspråkiga. Lärarna måste alltså räkna med att eleverna i klassen behärskar svenska språket i varierande grad. Forskning visar att för att andraspråkselever ska få samma chans som förstaspråkselever att mötas utifrån sina förutsättningar och behov, krävs att alla lärare har kunskaper om hur andraspråksutveckling går till och hur man kan planera och genomföra undervisning som är samtidigt språkutvecklande och kunskapsutvecklande. Men lärarutbildningen prioriterar inte dessa ämnen. Inte heller finns det några formella krav på att grundlärare ska ha dessa kunskaper.   Genom intervjuer med två lärare i årskurs tre undersöks i föreliggande studie hur stor betydelse lärarnas eget driv har för att skapa förutsättningar för en framgångsrik språk- och kunskapsutveckling för andraspråkselever. Resultatet visar att lärarnas eget intresse och engagemang har en nyckelroll i detta. / A large percentage of students in Swedish schools today are multilingual. Consequently teachers must expect varying degrees of Swedish language proficiency of the students in the classroom. Research shows that in order to give second language students the same chance of being met on the basis of their capacities and needs as students with Swedish as their first language have, it is important that all teachers have knowledge of second language development as well as of educational planning and implementation that is developing both language and subject-matter knowledge. Regardless of this finding the teacher education programme does not prioritize these subjects; nor are there any formal requirements that primary school teachers should have these skill sets.   In this study interviews were conducted with two third grade teachers to probe the significance of the teacher's own enthusiasm in creating optimal conditions for the development of the student's language skills and learning. The results show that the teachers' own interest and commitment play a key role in this matter.

In 2000, the passage of Proposition 203 in Arizona virtually replaced bilingual education with a Structured English Immersion (SEI ) program. In 2006, the State legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2064 which essentially segregated ELL students for four hours of the school day in an SEI classroom in which English Language Development (ELD) was taught. In 2008, the four-hour SEI block was mandated in public schools across Arizona.This study investigated the lived experiences of public school teachers teaching the four-hour SEI block, the relationship between what these teachers know about second language acquisition and the strategies they utilized, and what they identified as the strengths and weaknesses that resulted from the four-hour SEI block and its implementation.Nine K-12 SEI teachers from one school district in Southern Arizona participated in this study. Qualitative research methodologies were used to collect and analyze data.The results of this study showed that teachers' experiences and teaching strategies were diverse and greatly influenced by their classroom composition, professional development, interpretation of the laws surrounding the program, and directives given by administrators. Findings from this research also indicated that teachers identified substantially more concerns than advantages related to the four-hour SEI program. Specifically, teachers thought the SEI classroom provided a safe environment in which students could practice English. However, teachers were concerned about the negative social and academic repercussions experienced by ELLs as a result of the SEI program and also expressed their own professional concerns related to the four-hour model.

The purpose of this study is to examine teachers’ perceptions of language development in social studies. Questions that will try to be answered are: How do teachers in social studies regarding grades 4-6 account for pupils’ language development in planning, teaching and grading? What difficulties do teachers experience while working with language development? What kind of support do teachers feel that they need in order to work effectively with language development? Research has showed that language is our primary tool for learning in all subjects. A language developing education is contextual, contains scaffolding and a lot of opportunities for interaction. Teachers have an important role to play in creating context that benefits pupils’ knowledge, linguistic and personal development. Earlier studies have showed that many teachers lack competence in how to work with language and knowledge development. This study concludes that teachers take into account pupils’ prior knowledge and that they understand the importance of working with different methods based on interaction and scaffolding to develop their pupils’ subject and linguistic capability. The main difficulty that teachers reported was the difficulty in adapting the education to the pupils’ different abilities. They also acknowledged the development of the specialized school language with its abstract words as a difficulty. Teachers reported that the best support in this process was collegial learning, internal education and language development models/tools.

The topic of this work is bilingualism in children coming from bilingual families, and children visiting bilingual or foreign language preschools. The theoretical part puts emphasis mainly on the specifics of children's bilingualism and bilingualism in general as well as characteristics of bilingual families and language focused preschool institutions. Furthermore, describes the general language development in children and compares it with the language development at simultaneous bilingual children, ie raised bilingual in the family since birth. The practical part has a mapping study of bilingualism in children with preschool ages. The research method is an online questionnaire presented to parents. The research sample includes 45 children. The data are compared between child-brought up in a bilingual family and children attending bilingual preschools. At the same time indicates a general tendency for bilingual education. An interesting finding is that the parents of children who want to raise their children in this kind of bilingual education do not prepare in any way and that the weaker language of the child, which is learning in pre-school, is reflected in his egocentric speech. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

The development of language, writing and reading is crucial for pupils’ knowledge development in school. Interactive book reading has positive effects on pupils’ linguistic development and furthers their learning in school. Our study aims to find out how some teachers perceive their work with interactive book reading in preschool class and grade 3. The questions asked proceed from the didactic questions what, how and why. To achieve our aim and answer our questions, six interviews were held, three with teachers in preschool class and three with teachers in grade 3. Based on the interviews, categories were distinguished for each research question and similarities and differences between the two grades. The teachers describe interactive book reading as active participants and reflecting readers. In grade 3 the teachers work with established methods, while the majority of the teachers in preschool class work with models they have devised on their own. All the teachers state different reasons why they work with interactive book reading, but similar categories are revealed after analysis. The conclusion is that more training is needed in interactive book reading for teachers in preschool class.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the pedagogue´s thoughts about and which strategies the pedagogue´s use to make the digital notepad work as an language development tool in preschool´s daily activities. The study has three questions 1) Which conditions do the pedagogue´s need to be able to use digital notepads as a language development tool in preschool´s daily activities? 2) In which occasions can the digital notepad be used as a language development tool in preschool’s daily activities? 3) What advantages / disadvantages do pedagogues see when using the digital notepads as a language development tool in preschool´s activities. The study was performed in two various preschool’s in two separate municipalities in the middle of Sweden, were three preschool teachers, from each preschool where interviewed by using semi-structured interviews. The results from the interviews showed that the digital notepad under several occasions can be used as a language development tool in preschool´s activities. The respondents saw many advantages and few disadvantages when using the digital notepad as a language development tool. The digital notepad becomes and works as a language developing tool as long as the respondents, have an exploring and challening approach while using the notepad with the children. While education, learning time, pedagogue’s attitude and approach was considered important strategies/preconditions which are needed/contributed for the digital notepad to work as a language development tools in preschool’s daily activites. / Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka pedagogernas tankar om och vilka strategier som pedagogerna använder för att lärplattan kunna fungera som ett språkutvecklande verktyg i förskolans verksamhet. Studien har tre frågeställningar 1) Vad behöver pedagogerna för förutsättningar för att lärplattan ska kunna användas som ett språkutvecklande verktyg i förskolans verksamhet? 2) Under vilka tillfällen kan lärplattan användas som ett språkutvecklande verktyg i förskolans verksamhet? 3) Vilka fördelar/ nackdelar ser pedagogerna med lärplattor som ett språkutvecklande verktyg i förskolans verksamhet? Studien genomfördes på två olika förskolor, i två skilda kommuner i mellersta delen av Sverige. Där tre respondenter ifrån varje förskola intervjuades med intervjuformen, semistrukturerad intervju. I resultatet framgick det att lärplattan under flera tillfällen kan användas som ett språkutvecklande verktyg i förskolans verksamhet och att respondenterna ser många fördelar och endast några få nackdelar med lärplattor som ett språkutvecklande verktyg. Lärplattan blir och fungerar som ett språkutvecklande så länge respondenterna tex är medupptäckande, utforskande och utmanande som pedagog. Även utbildning, vägledning, tid, pedagogernas inställning och förhållningssätt ansågs vara viktiga strategier/förutsättningar som behövdes finnas/tillföras för att lärplattan ska kunna användas och fungera som ett språkutvecklande verktyg i förskolans verksamhet.