The Award was recieved by Aleksis Salusjärvi at the 23rd European Literacy Conference in Chania in June 2024. The “Words matter – Sanat Haltuun” -project, nominated by FinRA (Finnish Reading Association), is supporting adolescent literacy in rap workshops, teaching reading skills as a tool for survival via rap-lyrics, by Multi-professional cooperation.
The project focuses on groups of adolescent students within different educational settings, vocational schools, special education groups and prisons. Supporting literacy competence through rap lyrics and music, an art form with which these groups are familiar, may give the participants a new, useful perspective on the use of language and literacy and increase their motivation for reading.
The project has been spread to more than 10 000 students in over 60 workshops so far, and a Teachers’ Guide, built on the experiences from the project, makes it available to all groups of students. Please read more on the LITERACY AWARD-page.