Martina Norling

About Martina Norling

Martina Norling is senior lecturer and Associate Professor (Docent) in education and preschool education at the School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. She has a PhD in didactics as well as a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and a master's degree in special education. Martina Norling mainly teaches subject didactics with a focus on early childhood literacy and multilingualism in preschool.

Research

Martina Norling's research interests are language, multilingualism, reading and writing development in the social language environment in preschool. Her research interests also concern outdoor pedagogy quality development, as well as transitions and collaboration in preschool, preschool class and compulsory school.

Currently, she is conducting research within the project Preschool Text Practices: Method Development and Reflection Based on Research and Professional Experience. This practice-oriented project (ULF project) is a collaboration between Örebro University and the municipality of Örebro together with preschool educators. The project involves collaborative knowledge development with 24 preschool educators and 10 preschool principals. Its aim is to develop didactic models, systematic approaches, and specific practices for shared reading and literacy activities in preschool settings.

Within the Nordic research group Nordic Early Literacy Education (NELE), collaborative research is being conducted on play and literacy. The project, Network of Nordic Early Literacy Education/2026, is funded by Nordplus. Through a series of workshops, the researchers have engaged in in-depth explorations of theory and methodology related to research on children's early literacy. In spring 2027, the research group will publish the book Writing in Preschool: Theory and Practice.

An overarching research focus for Martina's work is the social language environment in preschool, which is derived from her doctoral thesis, (Preschool – a social language environment an arena for emergent literacy processes), Förskolan - en arena för social språkmiljö och språkliga processer . The concept of ‘social language environment’ can be described as a broader perspective on children's early language, reading, and writing development, which takes place before the development of formal written language. Recently, the focus has also included multilingualism.

Links to related articles:

Nordic Preschool Teachers’ Views of the Physical and Psychological Literacy Environments Regarding Read-Alouds in Preschool. 

The social language environment – domain: ECEC teachers' self-reported ratings of strategies in teaching literacy.

Video Recording as a Method for Swedish Preschool Teachers to Analyze Multilingual Strategies.

Teaching

Martina Norling primarily teaches subject didactics with a focus on language, multilingualism, children's early reading and writing development, research methods, and topics generally related to children's learning and development in preschool. She supervises student theses and is an assistant supervisor for doctoral students.  

Collaborations and assignments

Martina Norling is part of the Nordic research group Nordic Early Literacy Education (NELE). The research group is planning for future projects such as data collection and article writing, as well as joint presentations at conferences. The common research area is "Early Childhood Literacy". 

She is also a member of the National Literacy Network and a Convenor of the international research- SIG, Multilingual Childhoods.

Management assignments:

Martina Norling is the programme coordinator for the Early Years Education Programme at Örebro University.