Abstract #1870

Abstract: As a part of the literature pedagogy promoting programme StoRe – Stories make readers (https://peda.net/id/b7896a1230b), teachers’ consciousness of their own readership has been promoted. Supporting teachers as readers and at the same time, enhancing teachers’ understanding about a text world of fiction, their agency as literature instructors is supposed to improve (Cremin, Mottram, Collins & Powell, 2008; Cremin, Mottram, Collins, Powell & Safford, 2009). Primary school teachers have many content areas and pedagogies to manage, and for this reason the special character of literature education and the features of fiction is in danger of being forgotten. However, according to Merga (2016), the joint discussion about fiction in the context of pleasure, and reading with expression and emotional connection in classroom, are essential when promoting students as readers. Creating a positive culture of reading in classrooms is mainly a matter of teacher’s will and values, which can be promoted in a teachers’ peer group trough active collaboration. Knowing oneself as a reader means rethinking one’s reading habits and values towards various texts. This forms a base for reader’s identity, and further for teacher’s readership. (Commeyras, Bisplinghoff & Olson, 2003; Cremin, Mottram, Collins, Powell & Safford, 2009.)

The role of primary school teachers is important while supporting the children as becoming readers. The parental support in reading fiction regularly at homes varies a lot. For example, less than three Finnish parents out of four (72 %) reports having a routine of reading books to their 10-years-old child (PIRLS 2016). However, reading fiction since the early years has proved to be an important asset of supporting a child’s emotional, ethic-moral and cognitive development, attention, literacy as well as thinking skills (Clark & Foster, 2005; Clark & Osborne, 2008; Merga, 2016). Furthermore, primary school teachers have an opportunity to create equal cultural capital to every child by highlighting child-centered literacy activities in their classrooms (Howard, 2003). Many international literacy assessments indicate, that there is a strong relationship between reading attitudes at home and reading commitment of a child (f. ex. PIRLS 2017). In the best case, teachers with high literacy instruction capacity can diminish the gap between the small literacy resources of home and the needs of individual development. Teachers who act as models of regular recreational readers to their students, are able to encourage children to be lifelong readers (cf. Cremin, Mottram, Collins, Powell & Safford, 2014; Merga, 2016). Teachers reading for pleasure and showing it to their students, are especially valuable to those children, who lack such model in the circle of acquaintances, like among friends or relatives.

Our data consists of a questionnaire for primary school teachers, which was used in data collection in two phases. Firstly, the questionnaire was answered by 100 teachers from 1st to 6th graders including the teachers of StoRe programme. Secondly the questionnaire was implemented by the StoRe teachers after they got through the StoRe programme. The repetition was made in order to study the possible changes in teachers’ readership and literature pedagogy. The questionnaire included 39 questions about teacher’s reading, opinions and conceptions about different kinds of texts, knowledge of literature pedagogy and pedagogical practices in classrooms. There were both Likert scale and open questions to answer. The questionnaire was analyzed in the means of quantitative and qualitative content analysis. In this paper, we investigate the readership of primary school teachers’ on the terms of cultural potential available in classroom.

The results show, that there are various kind of reading profiles among primary school teachers. As a consequence, many types of paths are also needed to get the teachers realize the value and meaning of their reading habits as well as support them in their reading. In addition to this, different approaches to books and reading have to be available for teachers in order to give them pedagogical ideas to create their a positive reading climate in their classrooms. This is also a way to support a teacher’s agency concerning his/her readership and innovative reading practices.

A central point for discussion concerns the analysis of the data: What could be the themes, factors and details to look for in order to investigate the reading profiles of the teachers?

References

Clark, C. & Foster, S. (2005). Children’s and young people’s reading habits and preferences. The who, what, why, where and when. London: National Literacy Trust.
Clark, C. & Osborne, S. (2008). How does age relate to pupils’ perceptions of themselves as readers? London: National Literacy Trust.
Commeyrass, M. Bisplinghoff, B. & Olson, J. (2003). Teachers as Readers: perspectives on the importance of reading in teachers’ classrooms and lives. Newark: International Reading Association.
Cremin, T., Mottram, M. Collins, F. & Powell, S. (2008). Building Communities of Readers.
London: PNS/UKLA.
Cremin, T., Mottram, M., Collins, F., Powell, S. & Safford, K. (2014). Building Communities of Engaged Readers: Reading for pleasure. New York: Routledge.
Cremin, T., Mottram, M., Collins, F., Powell, S. & Safford, K. (2009). Teachers as Readers: Building
communities of readers. Literacy 43 (1):11-19.
Howard, T. C. (2003). Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: Ingredients for Critical Teacher Reflection. Journal Theory Into Practice 42.
Merga, M. (2016). I don't know if she likes reading”. Are teachers perceived to be keen readers, and how is this determined? English in Education 50(3):255-269.
The PIRLS 2016. International Results in Reading. https://timssandpirls.bc.edu/pirls2016/index-pirls.html

Promoting primary school teachers’ readership in order to create innovative literature pedagogy in classrooms