Objectives of the project:These objectives of the project is to focus on basic skills, reading and writing. The project New Approaches to Literacy, is developed through networking and learning from each other within the project. The network for exchanging reading and writing skills and discussing literacy is an efficient way of increasing the knowledge to impact significantly on student learning. The objectives pursued are improving the learning outcomes of all students regeardless of their socioeconomic background by focusing on developing the core attributes of an effective teacher. Thus the focus of our project is having the aim of improving student results by trying to improve the teaching skills in teching literacy of teachers participating in our project New Approaches to Literacy. The teachers skills are improved by learning the new methodology R2L.The R2L, professional learning programme gives teachers profound new knowledge about language and pedagogy, that guides them to plan their lessons with confidence and independence, enables them to engage every one of their students to learning with success, and allows to integrate all of this within the existing classroom curriculums. The objectives being training all teachers to be more responsive to the linguistic and cultural diversity of students and to develop tools needed to to implement a “whole-school approach” to refugee and diasadvantaged children education.The exchange of methods is directed towards providing teachers with the skills to teach and access for deep understanding. The teaching required has a constant focus on teaching and learning is entrenched in the culture of an effective learning community. The objectives of the NAL-project are learning and teaching the methodology R2L and with it a pedagogical approach of inclusive education based on the key competences and basic skills focusing on literacy. The project also strengthens the tools and methods for professionalization and professional development of teachers.The number of participants are teachers and studetns of five schools in Poland, Sweden, Romania, Turkey and Ireland. The sizes of the participant schools vary from 800 to 130 pupils.The participant countries are either facing the current refugee wave in Europe at their schools or are preparing by ensuring that the education and training systems at each school can be able to enhance diversity. Thus the target group when it comes to the children and young people in the project are refugees and disadvantaged children. Although the method R2L implemented during the project is an inclusive one and thus ensuring all the pupils social inclusion and participation.During the NAL-project and the processes of action research, both qualitative and quantitative data is to be collected. There will be three different learning activites for studetns with teachers as accompanying participants during the NAL-project. There will also be two teacher learning activities to teach the R2L as a method and at the end of the project to discuss R2L as a preventive and inclusive model compared to the Reading Recovery Programme used in Ireland.To apply and implement Reading to Learn as a pedagogical method connected to the different participant schools curriculum, such as drama/theatre and reading manuscripts (Romania), web-pages and media literacy (Poland). Dialogskolan in Sweden has been working with extern expertise in the developing project R2L, Reading to Learn. This expertise will be available during the project New Approaches to Literacy. R2L as a method can be appied as the basis for the whole literacy project so that all participating countries can use the method during the project and try adding it to the current literacy programs and curriculums of their schools. The implementation of Reading to Learn as a transformational classroom pedagogy and methodology, includes the change of traditional patterns in the calssroom. To enable these kind of fundamental changes in the patterns with the aim to democratize and promote the common values of freedom, Reading to Learn draws on three theoretical perspectives: 1. Social learning theory, sometimes termed ‘scaffolding’ (Bruner 1986, Vygotsky 1978), 2. Genre theory of the ‘Sydney School’ (Martin, Christie & Rothery 1987, Rose 2008), and 3. Bernstein’s (1996/2000) theory of pedagogic discourse.The theory behind R2L thus sees knowledge as a social action and something constructed through different interactional patterns. This leads to the important pedagogical idea that the cognitive development is interwoven with language development and the two factors are totally dependent on each other. This leads further to the idea that the interaction patterns between teachers and students in the classroom is the key to a democratic change, which will ultimately lead to truly democratic education and longterm impacts.
The main objectives of the project New Approaches to Literacy envisaged developing basic skills, like reading and writing through networking and learning from each other within the project. The topic of the project largely answered the needs of our students, covering a wide range of ages, at both primary and secondary levels. The basis of the network for exchanging reading and writing skills and discussing literacy was established during the first meeting in Sweden, where teachers from Romania, Poland and Turkey took part in the training programme regarding the Reading to Learn teaching method, with the purpose of encouraging and facilitating learning by means of using the text as a teaching resource and via implementing the strategy within each partner school and adapting it to the specific educational needs of each school. The teachers’ skills were improved by learning the new methodology R2L. The professional learning programme provided teachers with new knowledge about language and pedagogy, which guided them to plan their lessons with confidence and independence and in successful learning and allowed them to integrate all of this within the existing classroom curriculum. There were three different learning activities for students with teachers as accompanying participants (blended mobility for school learners), in which students from the four countries met and took part in various activities. The first, hosted by Romania, was the ground of unfolding activities in which the method Reading to Learn was applied in connection to drama activities, thus encouraging the exchange of good practices and the inter-knowledge of cultures. The blended mobility for school learners held in Poland placed the accent on applying the R2L method in IT context by means of using ICT. The next blended mobility for school learners held in Turkey was a good activity, which reinterpreted the R2L method in games and drama activities connected to important cultural symbols from Turkey, Romania, Poland and Sweden. The last meeting in Sweden represented the proper context for partners to analyse and present the impact of R2L method on teachers, students and local communities in the four schools. During this meeting, the teachers discussed R2L as a preventive and inclusive model compared to other methods used in the participating countries. The implementation of Reading to Learn as a transformational classroom pedagogy and methodology included the change of traditional patterns in the classroom. A way to emphasize the importance of added value when it comes to the project being international compared to national, is the insights of Fullan and Quinn (2016); ”Groups are powerful, which means they can be powerfully wrong. Getting together without the discipline and specificity of collective work can be grand waste of time.” During the international project NAL it became obvious that there are many different ways to apply the same method. One dimension of the differences was cultural, another the school systems. While in the participating countries the focus was on discussing the method after applying it and wanting to compare it with other available Reading methods, in Sweden the main focus was on applying the method. This due to the Swedish school system, which has allowed teachers to teach in their private ways in their classrooms. In such school system it is difficult toncreate a community of best practice, where the teachers examine different pedagogical methods together. Fortunately, NAL took place when the R2L method was already applied in the Swedish hosting school. Although the exchange of taking part of how the schools applied the method, gave the Swedish participants a lot to discuss and ponder about. Thus the awareness of the context, i.e. the school system and the cultural differences, increased while the project was proceeding.