Syfte
The study investigates the physical literacy environment in kindergartens in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The purpose is to investigate how the physical environment in kindergartens supports children’s reading and writing skills. The research question is: What characterises kindergartens’ physical literacy environment in the three Nordic countries studied?
Resultat
The results show that access to children’s books was good in all three countries. Half of the kindergartens had their own reading and writing areas, and the children had access to digital devices in just under half of the kindergartens. Most kindergartens had multilingual children, but texts and books in these children’s native languages were rare. Overall, children’s books were the main source of literacy in kindergartens, while artefacts supporting writing skills and digital literacy were rarer. The authors conclude that the physical environment in the studied kindergartens does not reflect the changes towards more multimodal literacy skills in society in general.
Design
The researchers used an observation protocol to collect data on the physical literacy environment in 131 kindergarten departments with children aged one to seven years old in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The observation protocol covered physical surroundings for three literacy areas: Books in printed format in majority languages, books in printed format in other languages and digital devices. Among other things, the researchers looked for the number of books, access to books, areas dedicated to reading and writing activities, and the availability of audiobooks, computers, tablets and interactive whiteboards.
Referenser
Hofslundsengen, H., Magnusson, M., Svensson, A.-K., Jusslin, S., Mellgren, E., Hagtvet, B. E. & Heilä-Ylikallio, R. (2020). “The literacy environment of preschool classrooms in three Nordic countries: challenges in a multilingual and digital society”. Early Child Development and Care, 190(3):414–427.