"Children’s reading experiences : 10-year-olds' stories of choice of reading, reading environment, reading response and book talks"

The purpose of this Bachelor thesis is to examine how children describe their experiences of their own reading, with focus on different aspects of reading: Choice of reading, reading environment, response to reading and book talk. Our aim is also to examine which approaches to reading their stories illustrate. The research is founded on semi-structured interviews with six children aged 10, in connection with book talks. For analysis we used Åse Hedemark’s study Barn berättar : En studie av 10-årningars syn på läsning och bibliotek as well as Aidan Chambers’ theories concerning reading and reading environment. Our results show that these children had very positive feelings about the aspects of reading. Several of them expressed that reading was at its best when they felt they forgot about time and space. The outer reading environment was also found to have an impact on these children's reading experiences. Several of them created their own reading places, which were characterized by being perceived as cozy and hidden away from the rest of the world. Despite that, there were also some negative stories, especially concerning reading they were obliged to do by their teachers. A neutral attitude to reading was also shown, in how the children might choose literature based on their friends’ preferences. By talking about their reading with each other, they turned their solitary reading into a social activity.Program: Bibliotekari