Planning and interaction: Teachers’ views on pre-primary read-alouds

Read-alouds are recurrent in early childhood education and care settings and there is an abundance of scholarly advice regarding the planning and implementation of these sessions. However, most studies concern read-alouds with younger children and there is little knowledge regarding read-alouds during the pre-primary year for Finnish six-year-olds. The present study therefore investigated teachers’ self-reported ways of organising and arguing for their ways of implementing read-alouds in Finnish pre-primary settings. The study focused on what teachers reported paying attention to when planning read-alouds and how they viewed interaction during the read-alouds. Data were collected through a questionnaire completed by 47 teachers and through group interviews with nine teachers. A qualitative content analysis showed that teachers mentioned paying attention to children’s needs, interests, prerequisites and the characteristics of the books in connection to planning. They also described practices that indicated that it is common for them not to be acquainted with the books beforehand or not to have a prior plan. According to the teachers, interaction during read-alouds is common and important. At the same time, some of them expressed that they felt expected to use read-alouds as tools for supporting children’s school readiness by calling for silence during the read-alouds.