Teachers 'practical work with the development of students' reading comprehension : A qualitative study of the importance of sociocultural conditioned prior knowledge and experiences in relation to students' reading comprehension in grades 4–6

Introduction and aim: Culturally and socially conditioned prior knowledge of text content can constitute a significant factor for teaching reading comprehension. This relationship is made visible and has gotten more consideration in education. Therefore, this essay has aimed to investigate how teachers in the subject of teaching Swedish perceive and draw attention to the importance of students 'socio-culturally conditioned prior knowledge, with a focus on students' reading comprehension. Method: When conducting this study, interviews and observation studies have been carried out at two different schools where four interviews have been conducted with primary school teachers teaching pupils participating in grade 4-6. Results: The results show that the teachers notice that the lessons and the students' reading comprehension are positively affected by the fact that they have a certain prior knowledge about the text content. Therefore, teachers choose to work towards supporting students to link the text content to something they recognize. The teachers emphasize that vocabulary and language skills can complement reading comprehension if students don’t have enough prior knowledge, thus stating that a text can be understood by combining the linguistic knowledge they have, to gain a greater understanding of the text. The study results from the observations showed that all teachers review the students need for reading comprehension, which their respective lessons were based on. Conclusion: Teachers perceive socio-culturally conditioned prior knowledge as an important part of teaching reading comprehension. The teachers' working methods showed several support structures such as guidance and modeling of strategies through communication and interaction in teaching. It also showed that they are teaching the application of different strategies for reading and understanding fiction