Actor urges minister to drop school reading app

Actor Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson has urged Iceland’s minister of education and children’s affairs, Inga Sæland, to consider ending the use of Læsir, a reading app for tracking children’s homework reading, mbl.is reports.

In an open letter shared on social media, Jóhannesson called for schools to return to recording homework reading on paper. “I simply cannot accept this Læsir app,” he wrote.

Jóhannesson said his daughter’s school first required homework reading to be logged through the app more than a year ago. He and his partner objected and instead printed paper reading logs similar to those the school had previously provided. Their daughter handed the sheet to her teacher once a week.

“This was never a problem,” he wrote. The paper booklet also included handwriting exercises, with 15 to 20 blank lines for children to practise writing different words each week.

However, his daughter began feeling that all the other children were using the app. After receiving direct and indirect messages from classmates and a teacher suggesting that everyone else used it, her parents agreed to let her join because they did not want her to feel excluded.

Jóhannesson described the app as “nothing more than a social media platform” and said it encouraged unhealthy comparisons between children, as well as constant recording.

Læsir is designed to help families and schools manage homework reading and give teachers a real time overview of their students’ reading habits and progress. The app was launched less than two years ago and initially received a relatively positive response from teachers. Parents and teachers praised it in a discussion on the Skólaþróunarspjall education forum in May 2025, where users said it appeared to encourage children to read more.

According to the app’s website, 19,622 primary school students in Iceland use Læsir across 97 schools. Statistics Iceland says there are nearly 50,000 primary school students in 177 schools in the country.