Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures, boxes, case studies and appendices
- Foreword
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Supporting every child to read
- 2 Listening to their voices: what research tells us about readers
- 3 Becoming a reluctant reader
- 4 Reading Club: a case study from Finland
- 5 Trained reading helpers: Beanstalk's magic ingredient
- 6 Let all children experience the joy of reading: promoting children's reading in Korea
- 7 Reflecting readers: ensuring that no one is excluded
- 8 Pulling in reluctant readers: strategies for school librarians
- 9 Not just for the avid reader: inclusive Carnegie and Kate Greenaway shadowing
- 10 Listen up! How audiobooks support literacy
- 11 Reading the future
- Index
4 - Reading Club: a case study from Finland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 June 2018
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures, boxes, case studies and appendices
- Foreword
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Supporting every child to read
- 2 Listening to their voices: what research tells us about readers
- 3 Becoming a reluctant reader
- 4 Reading Club: a case study from Finland
- 5 Trained reading helpers: Beanstalk's magic ingredient
- 6 Let all children experience the joy of reading: promoting children's reading in Korea
- 7 Reflecting readers: ensuring that no one is excluded
- 8 Pulling in reluctant readers: strategies for school librarians
- 9 Not just for the avid reader: inclusive Carnegie and Kate Greenaway shadowing
- 10 Listen up! How audiobooks support literacy
- 11 Reading the future
- Index
Summary
Introduction and background
Finland tops the World's Most Literate Nations (www.ccsu.edu/wmln) rankings, which judge not their populace's ability to read but, rather, literate behaviours and their supporting resources. Even so, we feel that there is still more that we can do for those children who have negative views of reading or who are struggling with their reading skills, and we believe that the lessons we have learnt about how to engage the most reluctant readers with stories will be universally applicable.
In Finland, all libraries are free and open to everybody and we have a cultural history of library use. Up to 80% of the population uses the libraries and the total annual lending in 2015 was 16.4 items per citizen. Seinäjoki public library is the provincial library for the region of South Ostrobothnia. The region is about 13,999 square kilometres in area and has fewer than 200,000 inhabitants, of whom around 60,000 live in the city of Seinäjoki itself. The public library comprises a main central library, three branch libraries and two mobile libraries and has a staff of 55. The total annual lending in Seinäjoki library is comparatively high: 20.9 items per citizen in 2015. Of the total items lent, 78.7% were books, most being physical books, as the e-book collections are still very small.
Seinäjoki schools do not have large school libraries and there is a culture of Seinäjoki public library support for schools. The library has a contract with schools for co-operation and regular meetings with teachers. For example, library staff will give book talks, arrange author visits to schools, teach information retrieval skills and attend parents’ meetings to talk about reading, media skills and libraries.
Mervi says:
As the director of libraries in Seinäjoki, I have always been very interested in children's development as readers and in the relationship between schools and libraries. Fortunately my managers have always also understood the importance of these matters, and I have been given opportunities to work on these things. I'm also a writer and I write mainly for children and young adults. But I'm a mother too, and I have seen at close hand that learning to read can be very difficult for some children.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Reading by RightSuccessful strategies to ensure every child can read to succeed, pp. 51 - 66Publisher: FacetPrint publication year: 2017