The National Literacy Program (former The Literacy Movement) is an ongoing governmental program aimed at promoting the literacy of Finnish residents, especially children and young people. The Literacy Program aims to expand the concept of literacy and to bring forward the importance of both multiliteracy and multilingualism.

The National Literacy Program operates nationwide in Finnish and Swedish.


The Literacy Program emphasizes diverse literacy not limited to a specific text type. New types of technology are changing our everyday life, work and, inevitably, our reading habits and texts. The concept of literacy has expanded, and multiliteracy is the major topic of the day. It includes interpreting and evaluating the content of the text. Multiliteracy also includes the skill to create various types of text. It involves the ability to absorb and convey information, identify emotions, and understand the use of language and contexts.

Diverse literacy forms the basis for all learning. Literacy enables people to become self-aware, find their strengths and develop their creativity and social skills. It is a basic requirement for personal development and active participation in society. Literacy is a superpower of the mind.

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Since the beginning of this millennium, Finland has held a top position in international literacy surveys, and the high performance of young Finns has set them apart from other student groups. However, poor literacy skills have become more common, and the number of highly skilled readers has decreased. The literacy level of those under the age of 25 has dropped in a little over a decade.

The Literacy Movement started out in 2017 when the Ministry of Education and Culture invited a group of literacy professionals to establish a National Literacy Forum. The aim was to explore the means of responding to the diminishing literacy among Finnish children and youth. The forum proposed a Literacy Movement with four guidelines:

  • inspiring children and young people to read
  • encouraging communities to support literacy
  • promoting the competence and cooperation of professionals; and
  • creating structures that promote reading.

The appointment of a coordinator for the Literacy Movement and placing the movement under the authority of the Finnish National Agency for Education meant that the guidelines could be implemented as of the beginning of 2019. In fact, the Literacy Movement was recorded in section 3.7.1 “Youth, culture and sport” of the 2019 government program. The Literacy Movement was supervised by a monitoring group chaired by author Juha Itkonen.

The movement was launched with the Literacy Movement at Schools campaign, featuring fun reading projects, workshops and author visits at about 200 schools across Finland. The campaign also produced its own content to support reading.

The Literacy Movement toured Finland attending various expos, events and training sessions to discuss literacy. In the spring of 2020, the movement launched its Literacy Movement at Schools and Reading Community programs to better integrate reading with the school curricula and promote the training of professionals at a municipal level.  

 

Literacy Movement Guidelines Brochure
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The Literacy Movement was commissioned by Parliament's Education and Culture Committee to create a National Literacy Strategy for Finland in order to support the long-term development of literacy. Literacy Movement continued as a National Literacy Program in the National Agency for Education. The guidelines of the National Literacy Strategy aim at long-term and systematic national, regional and local literacy work, which will help to develop Finland into the most multiliterate country in the world by 2030.

The National Literacy Strategy 2030 describes the measures that should be taken in Finland to strengthen multiliteracy. Because some differentation already takes place during primary and lower secondary education and the number of persons with ineffective reading skills has increased especially among young people, concrete measures are required at the national, regional and local levels to reverse the direction. The vision of the Literacy Strategy – Finland - the most multiliterate country in the world in 2030 – aims for society in which the importance of literacy is acknowledged widely in all sectors and everyone’s literacy skills will be supported and strengthened throughout their life.

The three guidelines of the National Literacy Strategy are

1) Creating and strengthening structures for literacy work

2) Strengthening multiliteracy competence

3) Encouraging reading and diversifying literacy.

In the National Literacy Strategy, the concept of multiliteracy is used to discuss reading literacy. Reading and producing texts requires multiliteracy, that is the ability to read, understand, interpret, write and produce multimodal texts in different environments and by using different tools and media. The concept of multiliteracy includes the idea that all literacy skills are equally valuable and necessary.

The steering group has been responsible for the main policy outlines of the Literacy Strategy and the project group for the writing and drafting process. The Literacy Program of the Finnish National Agency for Education has coordinated the work of the project group and the steering group.

Sub programs of “Reading School” (Lukeva koulu) and “Reading Municipality” (Lukeva kunta) were introduced and supported by grants. The “Reading Early Childhood Education and Care” (Lukeva varhaiskasvatus) is being developed and will be introduced in year 2024.

 

Kuvassa väripalkkeja ja sanoja
Photo: Lukutaito-ohjelma

 

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Transversal competence. The curricula emphasize transversal competence. This refers to the ability to possess various types of knowledge and skills and a comprehensive ability to combine these different elements. Transversal competence includes interaction skills, learning skills and multiliteracy, for example.

Structures to promote reading. As a national operator, the Literacy Program is able to promote literacy and reading by influencing various structures. In practice, this can mean promoting cooperation between Regional State Administrative Agencies, for example.

Literacy. Reading and literacy can be examined from various angles. The benefits of literacy are often pointed out: studies suggest that reading helps develop empathy and imagination and has an impact on social and financial success. Literacy is an effective means of learning new things. On the other hand, reading may be completely useless, a way to entertain oneself or pass the time. However, literacy is, above all else, a crucial condition of life and equality. Without literacy, it is nearly impossible to become part of society, find help when needed and be understood through putting your thoughts into words. Without literacy, you would not have been able to read this text and form your own opinion of it.

Community. A community refers to an environment, formed by home, school, residential area and peer group, that has an irreplaceable impact on the growth and development of the child or young person.

Language awareness. A language-aware school recognizes the significance of language in learning, teaching, assessments and all activities. This means respecting all languages and making them a natural part of the school’s operating culture. In teaching, it covers language-aware working methods based on teacher cooperation.

Multiliteracy. The concept of multiliteracy emphasizes that reading is not limited to written texts. Text may also be auditory, kinetic or numerical. We read images and videos, situations and one another. These various forms of multiliteracy are mutually supportive. In addition to the ability to understand and critically evaluate diverse messages, the concept of multiliteracy also includes the ability to produce text. The multiliteracy of children and young people should be supported across school subjects and as part of the operating culture of schools and educational institutions.

Multilingualism. Multilingualism is growing in Finland; more and more children speak Finnish and at least one other language as their native languages. The Finnish National Agency for Education promotes language-aware teaching where languages and language learning are mutually supportive instead of conflicting.

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