Course content

The course addresses the importance of building a vibrant reading culture to promote reading skills, reading motivation, and stamina. Its point of departure is that reading is a complex sociocultural phenomenon involving people, texts, spaces, values, and attitudes. The course provides insight into sociocultural and material theories of reading and reading culture, with an emphasis on schools, classrooms, and libraries as communities of reading. A central aim is to develop the participants’ ability to build strong reading cultures for all students, regardless of academic level, reading proficiency, or background. This is achieved e.g. through the exploration of various pedagogical approaches and systematic experimentation in the participants’ own professional practice. Participants are expected to contribute to developing the reading culture at their own school. The content will be adapted to the needs and backgrounds of the participants within the framework of the course.

Learning outcome

Knowledge

The student has

• Knowledge of reading as a sociocultural phenomenon
• Knowledge of the importance of reading culture in schools, homes, and society
• Knowledge of the roles of the school library: reading motivation, information retrieval and evaluation, and inclusion
• Knowledge of various critical, analytical, and aesthetic approaches to reading and the relationships between them

Skills

The student can

• Plan and carry out instruction in reading fiction and nonfiction
• Facilitate exploratory and dialogic reading instruction
• Select appropriate texts for individual students and groups of students
• Use the school library and collaborate with the school librarian
• Communicate and facilitate reading experiences for individual students, larger student groups, and staff

General competence

The student can

• Facilitate strong reading cultures for diverse readers
• Plan and carry out reading instruction
• Evaluate their own practice in light of theory

Learning methods and activities

The programme spans two terms and combines in‑person sessions with digital content. The teaching methods integrate lectures with student‑active learning approaches (discussion tasks, creative assignments, testing of didactic methods, oral presentations). We expect active participation from students. The mandatory activities will be linked to the participants’ own professional practice.

Compulsory assignments

• Obligatory attendance
• Compulsory activity according to the course description

Specific conditions

Course materials

A syllabus will be made available at the beginning of the term. Parts of the reading list may be co-constructed with participants.