To move between everyday language and subject-specific language in joint reading : - an action research project in a Swedish gymnasium

The project has been implemented as teacher driven action research, where subject-specific reading was studied in classroom practitioners and analyzed by using Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). The purpose was, partly to research which linguistic domains the teachers used in the part detailed reading in Reading to Learn (R2L) and how the discursive movement looked, and partly if progression could be seen during a school year and in that case, how it affected the educators’ teaching. Participating in the study were four teachers working in a Swedish gymnasium: a chemistry teacher and a teacher of social studies, who were working in academic preparatory programs and a teacher in Swedish as a second language and a teacher in history in one of the introductory programs. The leader of the project and author of this study is also a teacher and colleague to the participants. Totally, twelve observations of detailed reading were implemented: three observations each teacher during one academic year. The most prominent characteristic of the project was how the teachers, by becoming aware of the linguistic domains, changed their way of using detailed reading and by using the discursive movement, they were able to make semantic waves. The experience of the teachers was that through the action research they received new tools to develop their subject-specific reading and therefore the students’ language and knowledge increased which contributed to a higher object achievement. Notable was that all students seemed to benefit from detailed reading, even the high performing and/or the students with Swedish as their native language. The result of this study may be relevant to studies on how to augment classroom practices to better implement the subject-specific reading which may lead to change for both teachers and students, regardless of students’ language and knowledge level, stage, or subject.