The Book Dog and Semiotic Resources in Envisionment Building of a Text World

The Linnaeus University project “The Book Dog and Astrid Lindgren” seeks to bring children and literature together and to use the dog as a tool for this. The method involves children reading aloud to trained dogs, called book dogs. By studying the practice of the book dog, we seek more profound knowledge of the importance of the reading practice for children’s reading. Such knowledge can have didactic implications for reading practices also in contexts where there is no book dog. In the study reception theories (Langer in Envisioning knowledge. Building literacy in the academic disciplines, New York, Teachers College Press, 2011a; Langer in Envisioning literature. Literary understanding and literature instruction, 2nd ed., New York, Teachers College Press, 2011b) are developed with perspectives of discourse analysis (Fairclough in Discourse and social change, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992). and social semiotics (Halliday in Language as social semiotics. The social interpretation of language and meaning, Edward Arnold, London, 1978). The result shows that the dog contributes with semiotic resources in the meaning-making process; the text world comes to life for the child through the expanded envisionment building where the dog is central. Since pupils read texts in all school subjects, the study should be relevant for all types of teachers when shaping reading practices that support pupil’s meaning-making, also in contexts where there is no book dog. The study can also say something about what engagement, attentiveness, and non-judgemental attitudes can mean for pupils, even they in reading and writing difficulties (Bergh Nestlog and Ehriander 2016).