’Kan man köra en skottkärra med fyrkantigt hjul?’ Läs- och skrivutvecklande praktiker i teknikundervisning i förskoleklass

The purpose of the study is to develop knowledge about reading and writing development practices in technology teaching in a pre-school class. The study is based on the following research question: What type of reading and writing development teaching is made possible in technology teaching?

The authors aim to clarify the opportunities for meaningful text events, which can be regarded as reading and writing teaching, that can be found in technology teaching. The study looks at the opportunities the teaching gives the pupils to participate in practices that support reading and writing development, not what the pupils learn.

The results are divided into four reading and writing development practices: coding, text creation, text application and critical analysis. In the analyses of the material, text events emerged in all four practices, but text creation was the most prominent practice. The analyses aim to highlight practices in which pupils are given the opportunity to participate in the development of reading and writing skills

The findings show that the investigative technology contexts in this study create many opportunities to support pupils’ reading and writing development through social interaction in meaningful contexts for the four relevant text practices. In technology teaching, reading and writing development teaching takes place in meaningful contexts for the children and based on the pupils’ individual prerequisites.

The study shows that teachers do not include teaching about the form of language and about the communicative parts of text types in relation to the technological investigation; focus is only placed on the subject of technology. The findings show that there are important opportunities for teachers to support pupils’ reading and writing development in relation to the teaching that takes place in different subject areas.

The study is based on the observation of technology teaching in a pre-school class. The class consisted of 15 pupils aged 6-7 years old, with a pre-school teacher and a coordinating teacher. In the study, no distinction is made between these two; both are referred to as teachers. The data collection was conducted through qualitative, non-participatory observations with the aim of observing the teacher’s actions when teaching. The observational situations lasted approximately 2-5 hours and were documented by the researchers through field notes and audio recordings of the teachers. A total of 660 minutes of observation were carried out over four different observation situations.

A convenience sampling approach is used based on geographical proximity to the researchers and teachers with the correct subject areas for the research question.

Alatalo, T. & Johansson, A. M. (2019). «’Kan man köra en skottkärra med fyrkantigt hjul?’ Läs- och skrivutvecklande praktiker i teknikundervisning i förskoleklass». Nordic Journal of Literacy Research, 5(3):63-81.