The purpose of this study is to assess the instructional use of mathematics picture books and teaching activities in the teaching of two second-grade mathematical units: ¡§Multiples¡¨ and ¡§Classification¡¨. In order to achieve this purpose, the researcher created four mathematics picture books. Furthermore, she explored the mathematical learning effects of second-grade elementary school students through mathematics picture book teaching. The stages of this study were three: creation of 4 picture books; implementation of using picture books in mathematics class; and, data analyzes on the collection of pre-test and post-test data; checklists of picture books follow-up activities; mathematics diaries; and, notes on students interview, classroom observations by teacher and investigator. The findings are three: 1) the creation of mathematics picture books; 2) the implementation of mathematics picture books in mathematics teaching; and, 3) the effects of using picture books in second-grade elementary school children's learning of mathematics. The creation of mathematics picture books. While ¡§Multi-colored Ice-cream¡¨ and ¡§Grandpa¡¦s Magic Forest¡¨ were designed in accordance to the unit of ¡§Multiples¡¨, two other books, named ¡§My Swimsuit is Lost¡¨ and ¡§Lala is Sick¡¨ were designed to integrate instruction in ¡§Classification¡¨. In these four stories, the plots were close to real life of students. These vivid presentations of illustrations and compositions not only drew students¡¦ interests and kept their high concentration, but also made them feel happy in exploring mathematical concepts implied in these books. The implementation of mathematics picture books. During the process of picture book teaching activities, students could keep high degrees of participation. Moreover, showing picture books through TV screen was applicable to whole class; using mathematics activities that were highly connected with contents of these picture books could motivate students¡¦ mathematics learning; applying these extensive activities flexibly could limit these activities which were infinite. The effects of using mathematics picture books. There was not only an advance in the cognition and understanding on ¡§Multiples¡¨ and ¡§Classification¡¨, but also positive attitude towards mathematics, mathematics class and mathematics learning. Besides, most students expressed their high expectations in mathematics picture book related teaching activities.

Syftet med denna studie är att se hur några bilderböcker utmanar de stereotypa könsrollerna. Jag kommer att granska hur pojkar och flickor framställs ur ett genusperspektiv och även titta på hur text och bild kompletterar varandra, med hjälp av Nikolajevas (2000) analysmodell för bilderböcker. Jag har valt att analysera tre stycken böcker och två av dessa har pojkar som huvudkaraktärer och en har en flicka som huvudkaraktär. Med den medvetenhet man har idag kring genus så kan dessa böcker vara ett bra material och verktyg i förskolan för att kunna visa att man får vara precis den man vill vara och det är inget som är konstigt med det. / The purpose of this study is to see how some picture books challenge gender stereotypes. I will review how boys and girls are portrayed from a gender perspective and also look at how text and image complement each other, with the help of Nikolajeva’s (2000) analysis model for picture books. I have chosen to analyze three books and two of these have boys as the main characters and one has a girl as the main character. With the awareness we have today on gender are these books a good material and a tool that can be useful in the preschool, in order to show that you can be just the one you want to be and there is nothing strange about it.

The picture book is an artistic medium is part of literature, especially of children’s literature. This discussion of the picture book extends to the dynamic between author and illustrator, and interactions between the verbal and the visual, as described by contemporary researchers, such as Maria Nikolajeva, Lawrence R. Sipe, and Carole Scott. Most of them were not picture book creators, so the voice of the picture book’s creator is easily overlooked. To fill the gap between the researcher and the creator, this project explores the creative process of the picture book by studio-art research. This project is concerned with the creation process of a picture book, presenting a coherent overview of an approach to creating an artist’s picture book, especially in the idea of development through both visual and narrative by two methods: research and practice. This thesis demonstrates my framework of creating an artistic picture book, Little Mouse. Chapter one discusses the methodology of the studio-art research, compares practical-led research and practical-based research, and identifies my multicultural background, to set the foundation of this project. In Chapter two, I applied a part of practical-led methodology to adapt and transfer a range of sources from history, theory, literature and popular culture to build up and enhance the depth of my concept of Little Mouse, which encompasses and analyses my core interest - a life-changing journey. Chapter three discusses how I applied practical-based methodology to reflect the progress of the practical work of making Little Mouse, particularly focusing on how framed a fiction story, and discussing step by step my approach to illustration practice. In the last chapter, I tested my potential readers to review whether my work succeeded in communicating and delivering my visual research in the form of my finished book. This project hybridizes multicultural sources to form a contemporary picture book which blurs the boundaries between illustrator/writer and reality/fiction. This also provides a case study of the picture book for bridging research and picture book’s creator and demonstrates a process of understanding and interpreting creative activities.

The purpose of the study is to analyse the accessibility in and to a picture book. The book was selected on the basis of loan statistics in a multilingual school. At the third place in the statistics was the most lent student-selected picture book Alfons and Milla (Bergström, 1985) which is the focus of this study. The book was analysed as to its accessibility in three different ways: the accessibility to the relationships revealed in the illustrations of the book, the accessibility to the interaction between image and written text, and also the librarian’s influence regarding the physical accessibility of the book.   The study reveals that the relationships between the characters in the book were often implicitly expressed and therefore an advanced literate understanding is required to understand the relations between the characters and to get access to the whole story. The correspondence between texts and images were often weak as the texts did not explicitly describe what was really happening in the image but instead described other things. This means that to completely understand and get access to the interaction between text and image the reader must have developed a rather advanced literate competence. Regarding the physical access to the book, the librarian actually tried to minimize the physical accessibility to the book in favour of other books.   The conclusion of the study is that the reader must be able to make many interpretations to grip the implicit meanings in the book. Such interpretations require quite an advanced literate competence. The book is popular among the multilingual pupils which show that they find pleasure in the book in one way or another even though they might not understand all implicit relations. The didactic implication of the study is that the pupils might need explicit teaching about how to reveal implicit meanings in literature in order to make them get a deeper understanding of the books they read. This is also a way of supporting their development of critical literacy.

The purpose of this study is to compare differences and similarities that can be found when working with picture books in a preschool inspired by Reggio Emilia versus a traditional preschool. The purpose also includes studying these different preschools views of the picture book as a tool for stimulating children’s language development and other skills the children may gain from using picture books. Qualitative interviews were conducted with four different preschool teachers as a method to obtain the teachers own opinions and approach of working with picture books. The result shows that the picture book played a central role in both kinds of preschools. The picture book is considered to stimulate the children’s language development, fantasy, subject knowledge and giving the children an opportunity to rest for a moment. The result also yielded that the preschools pedagogical orientation is affected by the individual teachers’ attitude. The teachers’ attitude and way of working with the picture book differs depending on how they think children obtains knowledge. Because of this it has been proved difficult to demonstrate any general differences in how the preschools work with the picture book since the individual teacher’s attitude is so important for the children’s meeting with pictures and text. / Studiens syfte är att undersöka vilka likheter och skillnader som visar sig i arbetet med bilderboken inom en Reggio Emilia- inspirerad förskoleverksamhet och en traditionell förskoleverksamhet. I syftet ingår också att studera hur dessa olika förskoleverksamheter ser på bilderboken som ett verktyg i att stimulera barns språkutveckling och vilka andra kunskaper bilderboken anses bidra med till barnen. Kvalitativ intervju användes som metod för att studera fyra förskollärares uppfattningar och synsätt kring sitt arbete med bilderboken. I resultatet framgick att bilderboken har en central roll i båda de studerade förskoleverksamheterna. Bilderboken anses stimulera barnens språkutveckling, fantasi, ämneskunskaper och ge barn möjlighet till en avslappnande stund. I resultatet framgick även att förskolornas pedagogiska inriktning påverkas av den enskilda pedagogens förhållningssätt. Pedagogers syn och arbete med bilderboken skiljer sig beroende på hur de själva anser att barnen erövrar kunskap. Det har därför visat sig svårt att påvisa generella skillnader mellan hur den Reggio Emilia- inspirerade förskolan arbetar med bilderboken gentemot den traditionella då den enskilda pedagogen förhållningssätt är så viktig för barnets möte med bild och text.

The study analyses four of Elsa Beskow´s picture books from a gender perspective and with character analyis as the method. The aim is to find out how gender is presented in the picture books and how the books reflect their time. The study also discusses how the books can be used in today´s school. The result shows that the men in the four works have the greatest power. They are portrayed as deciding and dominating everything. The character analysis also shows that they are portrayed as being surly rather than cheerful. The women and the girls in the works are portrayed as capable, caring and cautious. The school curriculum states that school should aim to ensure that all pupils are treated equally regardless for sex. Beskow´s works reflect the gender roles that prevailed around 1900, and teachers need to be aware of this when the works are used in school today.

The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between text and picture in two works by Sven Nordqvist, with the focus on how the action is propelled. The two works are compared in order to bring out any differences in the relationship and what significance this can have for the interpretation. The study also considers the theory of conceptual worlds to examine how the books can promote pupils’ literary understanding. The method of analysis is based on Rhedin’s (2001) theoretical concepts and elements of Nikolajeva’s (2000) terminology. The study demonstrates a difference in the works, in that the first one has an even balance in the amount of text and pictures. It is obvious that text and picture interact and together carry the narrative forward, while simultaneously leaving some freedom of interpretation to the reader. In the other work, the pictures dominate in terms of both space and content, and it is chiefly the pictures that carry the narrative forward. In the second work there is also an unclear relationship between text and picture, which gives the reader further scope for interpretation. The pictures in the two works and the scope for interpretation make them suitable for the development of reading comprehension, through the construction of conceptual worlds.

The aim of this study has been to investigate how the death of a close relative is described in pictures and texts through the eyes of a child character in three picture books. The analysis has also considered how the child character copes with the tragedy and how he or she finds support in the grief process. The books analysed here are Resan till Ugri-La-Brek (1987), Farväl, Rune (1986), and Jättebra Olga! (2010). Since these are works of fiction, this study does not assume that they are an accurate reflection of reality, but the way the child characters act and cope with their grief has been compared with the findings of empirical research on how children react in real situations. The material has been examined by means of a qualitative literary analysis comparing the books according to the research questions. The study finds that the child characters receive evasive explanations from people around them concerning what death means, for instance that the person is sleeping. A common reaction among the children is to deny what has happened. To find the way out of the grief, the child characters begin by looking for answers to their questions about death, and by thinking of memories of the dead person. According to empirical research, abstract explanations of death should be avoided for children in grief, since this can cause confusion. Everyone will be affected by grief some time during life, and children can ask questions about this uncertain subject. Another aim here has therefore been to consider any possible benefits the books may have for practical application in the classroom when discussing these matters.

Uppsatsen Bilderboksstunden i förskolan undersöker potentialer i två välkända svenska bilderböcker under tretton videofilmade bilderboksstunder på två förskoleavdelningar i skilda kommuner. Undersökningen är gjord utifrån de föreställningsvärldar (Langer 1995:5) och den textrörlighet (Liberg m.fl. 2010c:46) som barn och pedagoger använder. Några möjliga innehållsliga teman i bilderböckerna kontrasteras mot det upptag som deltagarna ger uttryck för i dialogen – som förs med såväl språkliga som kroppsliga uttrycksmedel under tiden som boken blir läst – och i korta samtal direkt efteråt. Föreställningsvärldar skapas utifrån flera olika hållningar. Vanligt är att, till skillnad från vad forskning i skolans värld dokumenterat, röra sig ut mot egna erfarenheter. Barnen som är mellan tre och sex år engagerar sig starkt i det innehållsliga temat det farliga i den ena bilderboken. Pedagogerna följer barnen i deras intressen, men när de försöker väcka tankar om underliggande betydelser svarar barnen vänligt med att styra samtalen mot upplevelser istället. I den andra boken vill pedagogerna fokusera det normkritiska temat som förskolans läroplan påbjuder. Barnens svar är vanligen undvikande utom i en bilderboksstund där en grupp pojkar starkt argumenterar, gentemot pedagogen, för könssegregerade lekar. Deltagarna ställer många gånger olika hållningar bredvid varandra genom att hastigt röra sig genom olika föreställningsvärldar. Olika föreställningsvärldar kan till och med smälta samman därför att de med hjälp av hopfantiserade lekvärldar använder element från boken, egna och gemensamma erfarenheter eller kunskaper och sina personligheter. Vid upprepad läsning skapade barnen lekfulla kontrafaktiska resonemang utifrån böckernas handling. Förutsättningen för att bilderböckernas rika tolkningsmöjligheter ska kunna utnyttjas är att yttrandefriheten respekteras och att barnen får avbryta läsningen. Den mest intensiva dialogen uppstår ofta i samtalet under själva läsningen, medan samtalet efter läsningen ofta avstannar. Det verkar också som om barnens förmåga att återknyta till upplevelsen av boken är omedelbar när läsningen återupptas. Uppsatsen visar att det är möjligt att utveckla rika föreställningsvärldar och stor textrörlighet vid läsning av bilderböcker i förskolan. Detta sker om pedagoger samtalar med barn med öppenhet för de tolkningar och fantasifulla associationer som uppkommer under läsningen, bland annat sammansmälta föreställningsvärldar. Studiens fynd pekar framåt mot hur de didaktiska potentialerna i bilderboksstunden skulle kunna samverka med förskolans övriga verksamhet i ett mer utvecklat litteraturarbete.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.