Enhancing the Readership of Teacher Students With Digital Book Subscription Services

Introduction

The need for high quality research on reading instruction in teacher education is high. Currently, the field lacks solid research relating to how student teachers should be prepared in the area of reading (Dillon at al., 2011). The results of a study by Risko et al. (2008) revealed that teacher education does not pay enough attention to individual differences of teacher students. This means that the quality of teacher education is affected by personal attributes, such as personal interest in reading (Risko et al., 2008). The current research in effective reading instruction highlights the importance of teacher´s readership, but readership is not commonly supported or illustrated in these studies (Cremin at al., 2014; Cremin, 2019; Merga, 2015).

Reading is an integral part of the way people learn. However, interest in reading has been decreasing constantly, and the number of children with poor reading skills has increased in all OECD countries (Schleicher, 2019). According to the latest PISA results from 2018, the reading skills of immigrant students as well as boys in general were weaker, and special attention needs to be paid in developing new pedagogical approaches to motivate these two groups in reading. Since the performances of the best readers have improved, the gap between different readers is widening, and it appears that current pedagogies are not successful from the perspective of equality and reluctant readers (Schleicher, 2019; Haverback & Parault, 2011). Teacher’s interest in reading as well as their positive readership supports the reading engagement of children (Clark & Teräväinen, 2015; Cremin, 2019). However, current studies (Kauppinen & Aerila, 2019 a; Lähteelä et al, 2020; Merga, 2015) indicate that teacher education does not take the reading engagement and the visibility of the teacher’s own readership into account during their studies.

The challenge for teachers is to identify why some children lose their desire to read and prefer to get involved in other activities during their free time (Maynard, 2010). School’s role in reading is particularly important for reluctant and less confident readers who do not have positive reading models at home (Allington & Gabriel, 2012). Mere talking about the importance and enjoyment of reading is not enough, since children themselves are aware of the benefits of reading, and it is apparent that this information does not motivate them (Haverback & Parault, 2011). Most children do not start out with a reluctance to read, which leads us to conclude that part of the negative attitudes towards reading develop through school (Maynard, 2010). This argument is reinforced by the fact that children’s attitudes toward reading become more negative with age (Stauffer, 2007).

Audiobooks and e-books have increased in popularity. For example, in Finland, digital book subscription services, such as BookBeat and Storytel, have sold 3.1 million audiobook contracts in the year 2019, when in 2018 there were 1.3 million digital book contracts sold (Finnish Publishing Association). In year 2020, due to the corona crisis, the numbers became even higher, and digital book subscription services have been in active use in schools in implementing distant learning pedagogies. In the spring of 2020, BookBeat service provided 200,000 gift cards for school children to be used in distant learning (Forström, 2020). Despite their growing popularity, digital book subscription services are not commonly used in education even though they might serve as an inspiring and beneficial tool for those children who are less motivated in reading or who have limited access to books. There are several reasons for the low usage of the service; the most common reasons include them being chargeable and schools not providing facilities for students to use these services. Furthermore, some teachers appear to have certain prejudices against e-books and audiobooks.