Balgarianovinite.com A Bulgarian–Italian research project assessing the reading skills of young children has produced a set of clear, practical recommendations for parents and teachers, including encouraging reading aloud and avoiding an early focus on speed. The findings were presented on Tuesday by the Institute for Bulgarian Language with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), which took part in the international project “Assessment of Reading and Reading Comprehension Skills in Early School Age in Bulgaria and Italy.”
The project was carried out within the framework of cooperation between BAS and Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) and was funded by both institutions. Funding for the Bulgarian side amounted to about EUR 6,000 over a three-year period.
Based on the research, experts recommend that children in the first, second and third grades read aloud, as this leads to better comprehension of written texts. They also advise that pupils follow the text with a finger, which helps improve focus and understanding at both word and sentence level, Prof. Dr. Svetla Koeva, Director of the Bulgarian Language Institute, told BTA and the Bulgarian National Radio.
Researchers also caution against emphasizing reading speed at an early age, noting that children who read too fast often sacrifice accuracy and comprehension.
The project was led by Prof. Svetla Koeva and Prof. Vito Pirrelli. The Bulgarian research team included Ivelina Stoyanova, Valentina Stefanova, Tsvetana Dimitrova, Maria Todorova and Hristina Kukova, while the Italian team comprised Claudia Marzi, Marcello Ferro, Andrea Nadalini and doctoral student Alessandro Lento.
The study was conducted in cooperation with the Hristo Botev Secondary School No. 21 in Sofia, which provided a real classroom environment for testing the project’s multimodal research methods.
More than 80 students in Bulgaria and 73 students from a school in Pisa took part, all from second to fifth grade.
Researchers used specially designed, age-appropriate texts with gradually increasing linguistic complexity. After each text segment, students answered questions to show comprehension. Children read both silently and aloud, while following the text with a finger on a tablet screen. Three types of data were collected and analyzed: textual data, audio recordings of reading, and tactile data tracking finger movement.
According to Prof. Koeva, this approach allows for a multidimensional assessment of reading skills and can be used to develop an automated system for evaluating text complexity. Such a tool could help textbook authors assess and adjust texts before publication, she said.
A comparative analysis showed that Bulgarian second- and third-grade students performed slightly better than their Italian peers, a difference attributed mainly to age and the timing of the experiments during the school year.
The results also indicate that reading skills can improve significantly within a relatively short period of time.
Presenting the findings, Prof. Koeva highlighted the importance of modern methods from computational linguistics and multimodal data analysis, while Prof. Pirrelli outlined the research infrastructure built for the project and its potential to improve reading instruction.
Also attending the presentation of the project were representatives from the Ministry of Education and Science, faculty from Sofia University, researchers from the Institute for Bulgarian Language, from the GATE Institute at Sofia University, and from the GIS Transfer Center Foundation, as well as representatives of two publishers, Klett Bulgaria and Az-buki. Bulgarian-Italian Research Project Assesses Young Children’s Reading Skills 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-02-03 17:27:00 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law