Research circle on children’s learning with focus on
language development in preschool
Karin Renblad, Monica Thörnberg, Carin Hellberg & Jane Brodin in
collaboration with the participants in the research circle.
Habo municipality and the preschool research group at the School of Education
and Communication at Jönköping University have signed a three year long
agreement concerning collaboration aimed at strengthening the link between
activities, education and research with special stress on Systematic Quality
Work in Preschool.
Within the framework of the project the following sub-studies are planned
and/or conducted:
- Reflections of the heads of the preschools on the national curriculum for
preschool
- Implementation of the revised curriculum and systematic quality work
(preschool staff)
- Does the curriculum support children in need of special support (special
pedagogues)
- Comparative study on the conception of quality among preschool teachers
(international comparison between Austria, Bulgaria and Sweden)
- Let´s read a book (study on reading loud in preschool and how this
influence speech and communication development
- Research circle on pedagogical documentation (presented in this poster)
Pedagogical documentation as one aspect of systematic quality work
Three preschools are involved in this activity. Before the research started the
participating preschool teachers had an introductory discussion about the
objective of the research. This resulted in the decision that they wanted to test,
study and reflect on pedagogical documentation and whether documentation can
Poster session presented at the 18th European Conference on Reading, Swedish Council of
International Reading Association (SCIRA), August 6-9th, 2013, at Jönköping University,
Sweden
be a support when follow-up and visualize children’s learning based on the
intentions in the curriculum and to document the results. The circle participants
have read literature, reflected and discussed the questions. They have also tried
to develop the pedagogical documentation in cooperation with their colleagues
on the different preschools.
Reading aload
Parallel with the research circle a project on reading “How about reading a
book” where all preschools in the municipality have participated. Focus was on
children’s language development. It appears from the curriculum for preschool
(Lpfö 98, rev 2010) that preschool forms the basis of lifelong learning. An
important aspect is to stimulate and give children opportunities to develop their
language, identity and creativity. The preschool staff and the special pedagogues
in Habo municipality experienced that there are a number of children at low
ages that has a worse language development than earlier. This was the main
reason for starting the project on reading aload.
Aim and follow-up
The aim with the project was to increase the consciousness of the importance of
communication, reading and story telling for children’s language development
among the staff and parents and to inspire the parents and the staff to read and
tell stories for the children at home and at preschool. The importance of a
stimulating language environment was also highlighted.
The project started in fall 2012 and continued in 2013 with different kind of
educational efforts, study groups and pedagogical planning, documentation and
evaluation at all preschools. The follow-up was continued by self-reporting and
evaluation of the project that took place parallel within the research project on
Jönköping University (HLK) in collaboration with the preschool staff. The
participants in the research circle have tested to work with pedagogical
documentation as support to visualize the children’s learning and collect further
data for the evaluation. Different developmental work has gone on at the
different preschools and this material forms the basis for the posters from the
three preschools in the municipality.
The following persons from the preschools have been involved in the research
circle:
Margareta Johansson and Madelaine Wulf, Bagaregatan förskola
Marie Gustafsson, Linda Brunninge and Christina Isaksson, Västra Kärr förskola
Helena Gustafsson and Monica Ojala, Slätten förskola
Poster session presented at the 18th European Conference on Reading, Swedish Council of
International Reading Association (SCIRA), August 6-9th, 2013, at Jönköping University,
Sweden