Gripes mulighetene? Om lesestunder med de yngste barna i barnehagen

The study investigates reading practices in kindergarten, with particular focus on how kindergarten employees interact with the youngest children (0-3 years) during reading sessions. The research questions are: 1) How and to what extent do kindergarten employees seize the opportunities to create joint attention during reading sessions with the youngest children? 2) How do employees balance the role of literary communicators with children’s involvement in these situations? The goal is to understand how joint attention can ensure children’s participation and what is required to establish reading sessions as valuable joint activities in kindergarten.

The results show that reading sessions involving joint attention occurred in only six of the 27 sequences. The employees often did not seize opportunities to create meaningful reading situations, which may be due to a lack of prioritisation of literature work in the kindergarten. It concludes that active and aware employees are required to ensure children’s participation in reading sessions. The study emphasises the importance of recognising reading sessions as valuable joint activities that require intentional planning and implementation.

The study used video observations as the primary method for data collection. A total of 27 ten-minute sequences were analysed to identify how books were used in employee-child interaction. The videos were taken from previously collected data in the research project Searching for qualities, which investigated the interaction between children and adults in toddler departments. The analysis focused on how employees initiated or responded to children’s initiatives regarding reading sessions and how joint attention was created or not.

Dybvik, H., Fodstad, C., & Jæger, H. (2022). Gripes mulighetene? Om lesestunder med de yngste barna i barnehagen. Nordisk barnehageforskning, 19(3), 42–58.