Skriftspråkande i förskoleklass och årskurs 1

Abstract in English

The interest of this thesis is literacy teaching and learning in preschool class and grade 1 settings in the Swedish public school system. The aim is to investigate what different meanings are offered in the initial teaching of literacy, concerning content, form and context. The offer of meaning is here understood as an important aspect of what pupils learn. The teacher s choice of content and form of the teaching will create different contexts of meaning, which will contribute to the shaping of pupils understanding of what literacy is about, to their view of themselves as literacy agents, as well as to their view of learning in general. An additional interest is to elucidate the possibility of a continuity between the literacy practices of the preschool class and those of the school and in what ways such a continuity can be perceived.
Theoretically the study is based on sociocultural perspectives on literacy and learning drawing basically on the research field of New Literacy Studies. The investigation has been carried out over a two year period, in two different classes in two different schools, during which the pupils attended preschool class and grade 1. The study is inspired by ethnographic methodology. The literacy events that have been analyzed can be described as a part of everyday life in the different classrooms. Concepts from Luke and Freebody s (1997) Four Literacy Resources Model have inspired the analysis of the empirical material.
The offer of meaning emerging in the literacy practices in the two classes point to a narrow view of what literacy is about in the early years of schooling. Letters and sounds become the what of teaching. Formal training of skills consti-tute the main content of literacy activities. The experiences and perspectives of the pupils and the questions they ask about themselves and the world they inhabit are not used as content of teaching and neither as productive resources in the classroom.