EAL families: the power of reading stories in home languages

Stories are a powerful way for children to develop language skills and connect with their culture. Specifically, for EAL families, storytelling in their home language is a way to preserve cultural traditions and is an essential part of their children’s multilingual development.

Sharing culture-specific stories also helps children to develop a deeper understanding of their cultural values and shape their own unique perspective of the world around them. This shared storytelling is intrinsic to strengthening learners’ family bonds and creating a strong sense of belonging, whilst also enjoying valuable reading time with their parents.

Reading in home language supports English language development

Children who have a solid foundation in their home language are more likely to succeed in learning additional languages and often find it easier to learn English. By sharing or reading stories in their first language, parents help to provide their children with this strong linguistic background, which will then support their English language development. By listening to or being encouraged to read stories in their home language, children enrich their vocabulary and improve their comprehension and critical thinking skills.

Parents can also utilise bilingual books, which allow children to compare both languages. Apart from helping children gain confidence in their abilities as bilingual speakers, the practice of establishing reading routines also nurtures an overall love of reading, which has been well documented as being crucial for future academic success.

Tips for parents and educators

Parents can enhance the reading experience by using an expressive voice whilst reading, asking questions, or encouraging children to retell a story or share their views. For more tips and ideas on how parents can make the reading routine more fun for their children, download our useful resource in the buttons above and below the article.

Schools, on their part, can encourage children to share stories from their culture in class or compare similar versions of tales across cultures. This helps to celebrate diverse languages and create an inclusive environment where every child feels welcome and valued.

Encouraging EAL parents to embrace reading in their home language clearly has a multitude of lifelong benefits for multilingual children’s overall development and progress. Reading a story is not only an enjoyable family activity but also a powerful process of creating emotions, building bonds, and passing a family’s language and heritage down to the next generation.

References

Dickinson, D. K., Griffith, J. A., Michnick Golinkoff, R., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2012). How reading books fosters language development around the world. Child Development Research, 2012.

Kerry-Moran, K., & Aerila, J. (2019). Introduction: The strength of stories. In K. Kerry-Moran, & J. Aerila (Eds.), Story in children’s lives contributions of the narrative mode to early childhood development, literacy, and learning (pp. 1-8). Switzerland: Springer.

The Bell Foundation, (2020). Working with parents to support the learning of pupils who use EAL: Guidance for schools. Available online.