Children’s Summer reading in Norway: Insights gained from the gamified library-initiated reading campaign Sommerles.no

Lidun Hareide,Silje Ims Lied,Eivind Tveter

doi:10.23865/njlr.v6.2052

Lidun Hareide, Silje Ims Lied + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.23865/njlr.v6.2052

Copy DOI

Abstract

Using gamification, the Norwegian library-initiated summer reading program Sommerles.no (lit: Summer reading.no) entices one-fifth of Norway’s primary school students to read for pleasure during their summer vacation. The current paper explores the characteristics of the 105,319 participants of the 2018 edition of Sommerles.no. This analysis demonstrates that the campaign is a success in terms of overall participation and, especially, in terms of the share of boys who participated (43%). However, the participation of children who speak Sámi and non-Western European languages at home is under-represented. Children who speak Russian or other Western-European languages than Norwegian at home have the highest registered number of pages read, whereas children from non-Western European language backgrounds read fewer pages. As reading for pleasure during the summer most probably represents the most effective strategy for the groups with weak reading capabilities, the reading campaign has the potential to increase participation by these weak groups further.

Highlights

A large body of international research, including the international studies of reading competence tests Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for 15-year olds, and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) – for 4th and 5th graders demonstrates that girls read far better than boys (Borgonovi, Ferrara & Maghnouj, 2018) and that multilingual children score lower than monolingual children in reading tests
Given that the gender differences observed indicate that a larger percentage of girls read for pleasure every day, whereas a larger percentage of boys never read for pleasure, any measure that motivates boys to read more for pleasure must surely be applauded
The participation of boys was very high at 43–45%, which is likely to be connected to the gamification and the reward elements in the campaign

Summary

Introduction

A large body of international research, including the international studies of reading competence tests Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for 15-year olds, and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) – for 4th and 5th graders demonstrates that girls read far better than boys (Borgonovi, Ferrara & Maghnouj, 2018) and that multilingual children score lower than monolingual children in reading tests Kennedy & Foy, 2007; Mullis, Martin, Foy & Drucker, 2012; Mullis, Martin, Gonzalez & Kennedy, 2003; Strand,Wagner & Foldnes, 2017).These trends were observed in the previous Norwegian PIRLS studies from 2001, 2006 and 2011, and in the international electronic survey ePIRLS for 5th graders Both PIRLS and ePIRLS document a significant correlation between how much students read in their free time and how well they perform on reading tests and identify reading for pleasure as one of the most important factors for reading performance regardless of gender (Støle & Schwippert, 2017) and of home language (Strand et al, 2017). The current study examines the free reading for pleasure practices of the 105,319 primary school children who participated in the 2018 version of the voluntary Norwegian summer reading campaign Sommerles.no (lit.: Summer reading.no). The collaboration between schools and libraries will be studied in a future paper

Theory

Materials and methods

Analysis

Findings

Conclusion