Speech Therapist: Reading Gap Hits Vulnerable Most

"Unfortunately, the decline seems to be real. International assessments, such as PISA*, which measures reading comprehension, show that it is decreasing both in Sweden and most other OECD countries. In the latest PISA assessment, 24 percent of ninth-grade students in Sweden did not reach a basic level of reading comprehension," says Anna Eva Hallin , speech therapist and researcher in the field of language, reading and writing difficulties at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska Institutet.

One factor contributing to the decline in reading ability, according to her, is the demographic changes that Sweden has undergone in recent decades. With increased immigration, the number of students who do not have Swedish as a mother tongue has increased.

"Those most affected are students with lower socioeconomic status and with a mother tongue other than Swedish. And boys generally perform worse than girls" says Anna Eva Hallin.

"Ideally, we want the school to function as a compensation, i.e. that the pupils who do not have strong support home at home should receive the correct help to develop their language and reading ability at school. But unfortunately, the gap between those who are good at reading and those who are weak seems to have increased, there is a reading gap. This is worrying," she says.

Another crucial factor in declining reading ability is simply that children and young people generally spend less time reading. This could be partly explained by the increased use of smartphones and social media. These offer quick and easily accessible entertainment that competes for young people's attention with longer texts - whether they are found on the phone or elsewhere, says Anna Eva Hallin. According to a study from Dalarna University, half of the ninth-grade students did not read even one page of continuous text during a school day in 2017.

The Swedish Media Authority's report 'Young People and the Media' from 2023 shows that the decline in reading among the country's 9-18-year-olds seems to have stopped. However, as few as 14percent of 17-18-year-olds report reading books or newspapers every day.

Research shows that teaching phonetic reading at the earliest possible age is a crucial first step for good reading development, especially in so-called alphabetic languages such as Swedish, where letters represent the sound of speech.

"We must ensure that basic skills in sounding out words and decoding text work for all students already in the first years of primary school. This is ultimately important for all other learning in school,' says Anna Eva Hallin.

'Unfortunately, teacher training programmes in Sweden have not emphasised this enough.

"We need to revise the curricula and ensure that early reading instruction always includes explicit and systematic phonics methods, and this seems to be underway. Throughout the school years, a lot of scheduled reading is needed, both together and individually, work on reading motivation and reading stamina, and a lot of group work and discussions about both language and longer texts - across all subjects. And we need to ensure that all teachers and student teachers acquire the knowledge of how to do this in an evidence-based way,' she says.

Wants to support teachers

Anna Eva Hallin is also involved in LegiLexi, a foundation whose goal is that all children should learn to read. Among other things, it provides a free screening tool used by many teachers around Sweden to identify students who are falling behind in their reading development and to get advice and support on how to structure their teaching.

- 'Part of my research involves developing this tool further together with other researchers and ensuring that the tests are really good,' says Anna Eva Hallin.

She is also about to start a four-year project on teachers' professional development to support secondary school teachers in helping students who struggle with various types of reading and language difficulties, such as language impairment or students with Swedish as a second language.

"We will further develop an existing Australian teachers' professional development programme, bring it to Sweden, and test how Swedish teachers and students experience it, as well as measure its effects on, for example, learning but also participation in the classroom," says Anna Eva Hallin.

Even among adults, reading seems to have decreased. The availability of audiobooks has increased, and more people listen to books today than before. Is this worse than reading? A review of research on this topic showed that reading at one's own pace is more effective when it comes to understanding what is said 'between the lines', or connecting understanding to prior knowledge.

- When reading, you have the text in front of you and you can choose to stop, think, go back and read again. Reading with your eyes thus has some advantages. But at the same time, listening is a crucial aid for students with dyslexia, and you can absolutely train to become better at listening to texts,' says Anna Eva Hallin.

Despite some bleak figures, she thinks there is hope for reading ability, she. About half of children and young people in all age groups reported that they themselves think they read too little, according to the Swedish Media Authority's report. And the solution is not only in school. Anna Eva Hallin's message to all parents is crystal clear:

"Be reading role models, read to your children, and with your children. Every day," she says.

Anna Eva Hallin is passionate about spreading research-based knowledge about language impairment and reading and writing difficulties, including through her website språkforskning.se.

*PISA is short for Programme for International Student Assessment and is an international study that examines the knowledge of 15-year-olds' in reading comprehension, mathematics and science.