Teller Report

Young people's reading ability is getting worse - noticeable in the school in Katrineholm: "Students need easier books"

11/3/2022, 4:46:08 AM

During the reading holiday, the focus is on reading for children and young people. At Nyhemsskolan in Katrineholm, it is noticeable that both the students' reading ability and word comprehension are declining. Something that worries teacher and library educator Anna-Karin Moberg Norman. - It's terrible because it's about our future, she says.


Leisure reading in almost all ages among children and young people is falling across the country, according to a report from the Norwegian Media Council last year.

The exception is in the group between nine and ten years.

Instead, there is a slight increase in daily reading.

At Nyhemsskolan in Katrineholm, tests are carried out every year to measure the students' reading ability and word comprehension.

They now see how knowledge in both categories is falling.

"Patience runs out"

Anna-Karin Moberg Norman, teacher and library educator, believes that reading in free time has been replaced by digital alternatives.

- I think it is a lot of screen time that students spend their free time on.

We hear it when they talk, that they are playing games.

They are tired when they come to school in the morning.

Interest in reading has become worse.

Their patience is wearing thin.

Their endurance and ability to concentrate when there are longer texts is worse, she says.

Project to promote reading

During the reading holiday, the "Katrineholm reads" project, which started last spring with the goal that as many people as possible would read the same books and have a common reading experience, ends.

Some of the activities have been reading aloud, various workshops and bookcases around Katrineholm where you have been able to pick up a book.

- It has provided lots of good reading experiences, we hope, says Linda Hellberg, librarian at Kulturhuset Ängeln.

It is in the public library's mission to promote pleasure-filled reading, something that Hellberg links to the reduction seen in children and young people's reading.

This is how the poor reading ability of the students is noticeable - hear the teacher Anna-Karin Moberg Norman tell in the video clip above.