Mid Sweden University and Kalmar University have organised studies on reading skills in a number of Swedish municipalities. All students in grade 8 in these municipalities have participated in the studies, approximately 24 000 students. These studies have included a reading test and information collected from the teachers about the students, including participation in remedial education.
Students of immigrant origin face two problems in relation to remedial education. One problem is that these students receive remedial education because the teachers wrongly assume that the students’ reading problems are related to general reading difficulties instead of problems related to weak understanding of Swedish. The other problem is that students of immigrant origin may not get the remedial education they should have because their reading problems are not discovered as teachers assume that their problems are related to weak understanding of Swedish. In order to analyse this the students of immigrant origin will be compared with the Swedish students in respect of participation in remedial education and reading test results.
The results will be further discussed and related to findings from other surveys, both national and international