The importance of reading is especially emphasized nowadays when the majority of information, irrespective of the source (books, daily press, professional literature, web sources, etc.), is primarily accessed via reading. Therefore, effective reading and reading comprehension are important in everyday life, but also in an academic setting. This particularly refers to pre-service preschool and primary school teachers, whose teacher training courses imply a good command of reading skills, but also teaching skills required for the development and teaching of pre-reading and reading skills. In L2 reading, there are additional issues that need to be considered, principally the possibility of skill transfer between the mother tongue and the second/foreign language. Hence, this research aimed to test reading comprehension in both Croatian (L1) and English (L2) languages in a group of university students (N=83), studying to become pre-service preschool and primary school teachers. Reading comprehension tests and a background questionnaire were used as research instruments in this mixed-method research. Contrary to our expectations, reading comprehension test results were fairly low, i.e. out of a total of 17 points, the mean results for the Croatian language reading comprehension test were M=13.6 (SD=2.05), while for the English language reading comprehension test they were M=11.29 (SD=2.24). The results were further correlated with the participants’ self-assessed language knowledge and reading abilities in both languages. A positive correlation was found only between the English language reading comprehension test and the participants’ self-assessed language knowledge and reading ability. Based on the obtained results, it may be proposed that teachers should focus more on developing reading skills and reading comprehension at all levels as well as in all of the languages that the learners are acquiring, especially in view of the proposed possibility of the transfer of skills among languages.

The fundamental task of Croatian language teaching according to the current curriculum is to teach students how to communicate in the Croatian standard language in various communicative and functional contexts. The use of the Croatian standard language does not exclude vernaculars, dialects, local speech and other idioms. Language teaching in lower grades of primary schools takes the student's inherent speech, which had already been acquired in the immediate environment, as a starting point. The cultural and methodological reasons for introducing dialectal content into the curriculum are also reflected in the representation of dialectal texts in textbooks published in the period between 2000 and 2010. Migrations due to war and postwar circumstances, the influence of mass media particularly television, the internet and social networks influenced the local idiom/language of Petrinja to unquestionably and inevitably change.  Therefore, it is necessary to note and describe the previous state in language/speech. In that attempt, the book Christmas in Petrinja. An overview of Christmas customs in two acts by Milan Dujnić, teacher trainer from Petrinja, served the purpose.  The book was published in Petrinja 1944 in the print shop V. Massari and I. Glavinić.  This paper will present the morphological and lexico-semantic description of the text. Using contrastive analysis the difference in the current speech of Petrinja and the Croatian standard language will be indicated. The methodological approach to this drama play implies its use in teaching language, literature and language expression.Key words: dialect, contrastive analysis, curriculum, methodological approach, morphological and lexico-semantic description-----SažetakTemeljna zadaća nastave hrvatskoga jezika prema sadašnjem kurikulu jest naučiti učenika komunicirati na hrvatskom standardnom jeziku u različitim komunikacijsko-funkcionalnim kontekstima. Uporaba hrvatskoga standardnog jezika ne isključuje narječja, dijalekte, mjesne govore i druge idiome. Nastava jezika u nižim razredima osnovne škole polazi od učenikova imanentnog govora koji je već usvojio u svome neposrednom okružju. Kulturološki i didaktički razlozi unošenja dijalektalnih sadržaja u kurikul odražavaju se i na zastupljenost dijalektalnih tekstova u čitankama objavljenim u razdoblju od 2000. do 2010. godine. Migracijske promjene uzrokovane ratnim i poratnim okolnostima, utjecaj masovnih medija osobito televizije, interneta i društvenih mreža uvjetovalo je da se petrinjski mjesni govor/jezik neupitno i neumitno mijenja. Stoga je potrebno zabilježiti i opisati starije stanje u jeziku/govoru. U tom nastojanju poslužila nam je knjižica Milana Dujnića profesora učiteljišta u Petrinji naslovljena Božić u Petrinji.Prikaz božićnih običaja u dvie slike. Knjiga je tiskana 1944. godine u petrinjskoj tiskari V. Massari i I. Glavinić. U ovom radu donosimo morfološki i leksičko-semantički opis teksta. Kontrastivnom analizom ukazuje se na razliku u aktualnom petrinjskom govoru kao i na razliku u odnosu na hrvatski standardni jezik. Metodički pristup ovoj dramskoj igri pokazuje na njezinu uporabu u nastavi jezika, književnosti i jezičnoga izražavanja.