The Quantity and Quality of Teachers’ Self-perceptions of Read-Aloud Practices in Norwegian First Grade Classrooms

Read-alouds are a frequent practice in early childhood classrooms and provide great potential for developing literacy skills for young learners including vocabulary, comprehension, text structure awareness, visual literacy, and fluency. Yet, any potential benefit of read-alouds depends on how the teacher enacts a read-aloud, particularly in regards to the amount and type of talk that surrounds the practice. Despite frequent use, read-alouds have not been systematically considered in Norwegian early childhood classrooms, which is the goal of this study. Specifically, 299 first-grade teachers completed a survey on read-aloud practices in December, as well as provided information on the most recently read-aloud texts in both December and May. Quantitative results were analyzed descriptively while qualitative results were analyzed via open coding. Findings indicate that read-alouds are most used as a tool for engaging and managing students rather than as a formal instructional practice. As read-alouds most typically occurred during lunch time, texts were selected primarily for entertainment and teacher talk occurred most frequently for the purpose of defining words. Conversely, teachers reported comparatively minimal use of planned (instructional) stops and reported limited focus on literacy elements. The analysis of book choices indicated that teachers used few informational texts and frequently relied on older, well-known children’s literature. Implications for this study are that although read-alouds provide much potential benefit for young learners’ literacy development, Norwegian teachers could capture underutilized benefits of this practice through greater planning and intentionality.