Monica Reichenberg, Professor at the Department of Education and Special Education, was awarded the 2015 Ingvar Lundberg Prize of SEK 100,000 for her research on reading and reading comprehension.
The explanatory statement provided by the publishing company Bokförlaget Natur & Kultur reads:
Because she, as a teacher and researcher, has shifted the focus from the failures that children with difficulties in reading often experience to looking at and critically examining the texts and making them more comprehensible, and in the form of conversation inviting all students to become actively engaged and co-creative readers.
Monica Reichenberg has shown that structured text conversations
can improve reading comprehension among students at all
levels and that active reading comprehension goes hand in
hand with attention being given to the students’ emotional
well-being. Her successful work is also sometimes referred to
as popular education, and it is a truly democratic project.
“I feel incredibly honoured and pleased to have received such a
fine prize, especially because it is established in memory of one
of our greatest reading researchers, Ingvar Lundberg. I had the
great privilege to have had the opportunity to work with Ingvar
on projects concerning the comprehensibility of texts and
reading comprehension,” said Monica Reichenberg.
“Reading is important not only for one to be able to successfully
complete their studies in school, but even more so for active
participation in society at large. For example, letters from
official authorities might be incomprehensible and strange for
a person with impaired reading skills,” commented Monica Reichenberg in an interview in Göteborgs-Posten talking about
being the recipient of the prize.
Monica Reichenberg is Professor of General Didactics at the University of Gothenburg and was previously Professor of Literacy at Umeå University. Her research primarily concerns reading comprehension and how texts can be made more intelligible. For many years, she has worked as a teacher of Swedish, Swedish as a second language, and social studies-related subjects in the secondary school’s advanced grades, in the
individual programme, and in adult education. In addition, she is also researching how weak readers’ reading strategies can be improved and remedied, even among second-language students.
The Ingvar Lundberg Prize is awarded to an academic researcher
who has made decisive contributions in reading and
writing or to an educator who has developed methods to teach
children reading or who has aroused their desire to read. Ingvar
Lundberg (1934–2012) was a professor of psychology at
the University of Gothenburg and an internationally recognised
researcher in reading and writing skills development and dyslexia.
“Monica Reichenberg is beyond doubt a worthy recipient of
the Ingvar Lundberg Prize. Her basic outlook is that anyone
and everyone can learn to read – and she has firmly shown the
development potential that exists even in those whom we have
chosen to call poor readers,” remarked Ann-Charlotte Smedler,
chairperson of the jury.
The award ceremony took place at Natur & Kultur’s Learn
to Read Conference at Nalen in Stockholm in late April.