Improving students’ reading comprehension skills by teaching reading strategies in Arvika, Sweden

The Centralskolan in Arvika, Sweden welcomes students from very mixed socio-economic backgrounds, including students from disadvantaged areas. Several years ago, the school realised that a significant number of its students’ grades were insufficient to enter upper secondary education. Student literacy competences across various subjects were noted as one of the key issues in the school.

To address this, customised reading strategies were designed with researchers to empower students to lead reading and text comprehension exercises.

The results showed that reading comprehension skills improved slightly at group level and significantly for the lowest achievers. Multilingual students also benefited from the innovative teaching methods involved. The school staff observed students being more active during the lessons, and even complex texts could be understood thanks to the strategies applied.

The full case study was created as part of the European Commission’s Study on supporting school innovation across Europe.