Reading in Sweden has not always looked like it does today. Reading and reading comprehension has a history and it has been influenced by different factors, earlier as well as today. Today the society has a different view of reading and reading comprehension than before. Reading today is more like a central part of a human’s everyday life where we are surrounded by different forms of writing that requires reading constantly.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how the past and current research looks at children´s reading and reading comprehension in Sweden, within the school subject Swedish. What the literature says about how the society sees reading today what it looked like in the past and also its development over time. This study also aims to analyze if there are any socio-economic factors that affects children's reading and reading comprehension. In order to pursue this study, we have chosen to use the following questions: What does the previous research say about reading comprehension? How does the previous research look at reading in a historical perspective? What does the previous research say about children's reading comprehension today? Which socio-economic factors have influence on children’s reading and reading comprehension?

We have chosen to do a literature-study which is based on previous research about children´s reading and reading comprehension, both national and international. In order to obtain relevant research for our area, the research was made on different databases such as DiVA, ERIC and the school library. We have chosen to look at the previous research through the transactional theory made by Louise Rosenblatt (2002).

This study showed that the view of reading and reading comprehension has changed through time. The study showed that the socio-economic factors as gender, heredity and environment has an effect on children´s reading and reading comprehension.