Teachers’ Perspectives on Promoting Reading and Writing for Pupils with Various Linguistic Backgrounds in Grade 1 of Primary School

The study investigates teachers’ perspectives on how to encourage pupils from different linguistic backgrounds to read and write in Year 1 of primary school. The research questions are: 1) What approaches to literacy education for pupils from different linguistic backgrounds emerge in interviews with the teachers? 2) How do the teachers in the study describe their didactic work in encouraging all students to learn to read and write Swedish or learn Swedish as a second language.

The teachers’ perspectives are described as balanced, as they describe how they work with both the technical (working with the alphabet, letters and spelling) and the learning-oriented (reading aloud, activities aimed at stimulating text creation and understanding of different text types) dimensions of reading and writing instruction. Although the teachers have a positive view of having students from different linguistic backgrounds in the same class, it also creates challenges and uncertainty related to how teachers can support individual pupils or use the pupils’ different mother tongues in reading and writing instruction. 

The study is part of a Swedish research project that investigates teachers’ perspectives on how to encourage pupils from different linguistic backgrounds to read and write in kindergarten, pre-school classes and primary school. The data material for this study was obtained through focus group interviews (4–8 participants) with 17 teachers who either taught pre-school classes (5) or Years 1 to 3 in primary school (12). The teachers came from three different schools from different socioeconomic areas in a Swedish municipality.

Sandberg, G. & Norling, M. (2020). "Teachers’ Perspectives on Promoting Reading and Writing for Pupils with Various Linguistic Backgrounds in Grade 1 of Primary School". Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 64(2):300-312.