| Summary: | The research dealt with in this article covers two years of reading development among 20 pupils in one particular primary school class in Reykjavík. The research was conducted during the period 2006 – 2008 and is intended to improve knowledge of reading development among pupils in 1st and 2nd year classes in an Icelandic primary school. Similarly to various aspects of human development reading is not an inborn talent. Reading is a cultural learned activity and the act of reading is a skill which develops with maturity at a personal level and evolves in the individual over a long period. Language comprehension and vocabulary are the foundations on which reading progress is based. Literacy and reading evolves in childhood and the first five years of life are particularly important in this process. In an environment which stimulates literacy and reading during the first years of life, most children develop certain cognizance of written language and become aware of the purpose of letters and words in a written text. Children who commence Icelandic primary school in their sixth year of life have, at that time, obtained a rich and varied experience of reading, both at and away from home. Such knowledge and experience benefits them when compulsory reading lessons begin in primary school. Being able to read a text based on the graphemes of the alphabet and their corresponding phonemes requires an awareness and integration of complex aspects of language and comprehension. Those aspects develop and thrive in childhood years, but remain, for the most part, at a subconscious level to the children, even at the stage when they enter primary school. Being able to read comprises having acquired the necessary understanding and skill to master the technique of deciphering writing and understanding text. Most children need organised teaching to become proficient readers, although there are significant individual differences. Some children learn to read, automatically, as it were, before they commence primary school. Most children, ...
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