Reading promotion in Northern Europe Ilmi Villacis Director The Finnish Reading Center

Reading promotion in Europe EURead www.euread.com www.europereads.com - Association of 25 organisations promoting reading in Europe - Initiated by Germany, Holland and United Kingdom ELINET www.eli-net.eu Europewide academic network, based in Germany North-Europe national strategies Finnish National Literacy Forum 2017 www.lukuliike.fi Swedish Reading Delegation 2016 Danish Literacy Strategy 2018

PISA

PIRLS The IEA’s (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is an international study of reading (comprehension) achievement in fourth graders.

Promoting reading in Finland Schools Nongovernmental organisations Publishing houses Private foundations Libraries

Finnish Schools

Facts about Finland The Republic of Finland has 5.5 million inhabitants. The national languages are Finnish, spoken as native language by 89 %, and Swedish, the native language of around 5%. Capital is Helsinki, 500 000 inhabitants. The GDP per capita 47057.62 US dollars (2017) To celebrate Finland’s centenary Finnish government built a new central library for it’s people.

Ongoing reading campaigns in Finland Various reading challenges and motivation competitions organised by schools, libraries and local volunteers Reading diplomas (schools and libraries) - encourages children to read a list of books and get the diploma as award for it. Reading Clan Book-gifts for school-libraries (by private foundation) in every elementary school in Finland. Reading grannies – seniors go to schools to read to the children. Finnish reading dogs help children read…

Reading campaigns driven by the Finnish Reading Center Bookstart Finland – Read to a child! - providing book-gifts to every baby born in 2019- 2021 through health care centers (reach 99,4% of babies born in Finland). Reading movement in schools – reading festival in schools, initiated by the National Literacy Forum. Words Matter/My story – reading inspiration for young people with the help of rap-lyrics and performing poetry. The annual Reading Week - reaches 30% Finnish schools and 50% libraries. Author visits -1500 performances annually, mostly in schools.

Finland in international comparison The most reading state 1. Finland 2. Norway 3. Iceland 4. Denmark 5. Sweden 6. Switzerland 7. USA 8. Germany 9. Latvia 10. Netherlands  The comparison of 61 countries   Literacy 1. Singapore 2. Hong Kong 3. Kanada 4. Finland 5. Ireland 6. Estonia 7. South Korea 8. Japan 9. Norway 10. New Zealand  The comparison of 73 countries   Educational system and its developing 1. South Korea 2. Japan 3. Singapore 4. Hong Kong 5. Finland 6. Great Britain 7. Canada 8. Netherlands 9. Ireland 10. Poland  The comparison of 40 countries   The most happiest countries in the world  1. Norway 2. Denmark 3. Iceland 4. Switzerland 5. Finland 6. Netherlands 7. Canada 8. New Zealand 9. Australia 10. Sweden  The comparison of 155 countries