The Quantity and Quality of Teachers’ Self-perceptions of Read-Aloud Practices in Norwegian First Grade Classrooms

Abstract

Read-alouds are a frequent practice in early childhood classrooms and provide great potential for developing literacy skills for young learners including vocabulary, comprehension, text structure awareness, visual literacy, and fluency. Yet, any potential benefit of read-alouds depends on how the teacher enacts a read-aloud, particularly in regards to the amount and type of talk that surrounds the practice. Despite frequent use, read-alouds have not been systematically considered in Norwegian early childhood classrooms, which is the goal of this study. Specifically, 299 first-grade teachers completed a survey on read-aloud practices in December, as well as provided information on the most recently read-aloud texts in both December and May. Quantitative results were analyzed descriptively while qualitative results were analyzed via open coding. Findings indicate that read-alouds are most used as a tool for engaging and managing students rather than as a formal instructional practice. As read-alouds most typically occurred during lunch time, texts were selected primarily for entertainment and teacher talk occurred most frequently for the purpose of defining words. Conversely, teachers reported comparatively minimal use of planned (instructional) stops and reported limited focus on literacy elements. The analysis of book choices indicated that teachers used few informational texts and frequently relied on older, well-known children's literature. Implications for this study are that although read-alouds provide much potential benefit for young learners' literacy development, Norwegian teachers could capture underutilized benefits of this practice through greater planning and intentionality.

Analysis of validity, practicality, and readability of islamic STEAM activity storybook for early childhood

“…Bartgis et al (2008) stated that children aged seven years have better attention than children aged five. Thus, to increase children's attention to reading books together, teachers and parents are expected to learn interactive methods for reading books, such as reading aloud or shared reading (Håland et al, 2021;Neumann, 2020;Torr, 2019)…”

Planning and interaction: Teachers’ views on pre-primary read-alouds

“…For example, scholars have pointed out that teachers who do not organise daily read-alouds do not read often enough (McCaffrey & Hisrich, 2017;Nasiopoulo et al, 2022). Other scholars have considered the institutions' book supply too narrow, as teachers favoured storybooks and seldom read non-fiction books (Alatalo & Westlund, 2021;Håland et al, 2021). Kindle's (2011) study found conflicting views on what children should learn in preschool and thus what role read-alouds should have.…”

“…Despite a wealth of research results concerning reading aloud with younger children on how to arrange successful read-alouds, several studies (Alatalo & Westlund, 2021;Damber, 2015;Håland et al, 2021) indicate that this advice has not necessarily been embraced across ECEC. Because of this, many studies have recommended more preservice and in-service training in connection with read-alouds (Håland et al, 2021;Hisrich & McCaffrey, 2021;Kindle, 2011), implying that teachers might not be aware of or have mastered recommended practices. Researchers connect read-alouds with aspects central to ECEC such as language and literacy development (Lennox, 2013), learning about the world (Boyd, 2013;Wiseman, 2011) and critical thinking (Evans, 2016;Kim & Hachey, 2021).…”

Extratextual talk in public library storytime programs: A focus on questions

“…Shared reading is a type of adult-child interaction in which the adult not only reads the text of a book aloud but also actively engages with the child in meaningful conversations about the text called extratextual talk (Pentimonti et al, 2021). The benefits of shared reading for children include receptive and expressive vocabulary growth (Lenhart et al, 2019), increased early literacy skills (Deshmukh et al, 2019), and deeper comprehension and content knowledge (Håland et al, 2021). A key strategy within shared reading that contributes to these benefits is the adults’ use of questions.…”