Multilingual children's books in school: Why it matters

Did you know that at every school at least one child has a home language other than Dutch? Often this is even much more than one child. For these children, a material in their own home language can be of great added value. Not only because it keeps them in touch with their home language, but also because it contributes to their self-esteem. This article is about the benefits of multilingual children's books at school and how you can make the best use of this as a teacher or school leader.

The advantages

The benefits of foreign language children's books at school are enormous! Not only because they improve the language skills of the child, but especially because they contribute to good reading motivation. This is important for every child, including children with a migration background. In many cases, these children already speak several languages. They may mainly speak the home language with their parents at home. Acknowledging all of a child's languages contributes to their self-esteem and identity.

In some cases, the parents of these children can barely speak or read Dutch. It is a lot more difficult for these children to be actively involved in reading books at home. By offering these children the opportunity to also read books that the parents can help with, the interest in reading books increases.

Furthermore, various studies show that children who master several languages have good cognitive skills. They also score higher on average on intelligence tests.

Schools can easily contribute to this by adding multilingual children's books to their school library. Moreover, reading multilingual children's books is also becoming increasingly popular among Dutch children.

How can you use multilingualism at school?

Multilingualism at school is an important part of education. For children with a migration background, it can ensure that they learn Dutch faster and understand terms and meanings of words. Example: if you write the terms 'sustainable' and 'responsible' side by side in different languages, children who do not yet master this language can deduce from this what sustainable and responsible mean.

Multilingualism in the classroom can therefore be of added value, especially for children who do not yet have a good command of Dutch. Showing words or exercises in a child's native language first can make it easier for them to recognize words in Dutch.

A few tips

Do not force children to learn a language: would a child prefer to speak their home language? No problem! Give children time to discover language at their own pace. Encourage any form of communication. This allows a child to have a positive experience in learning different languages.
Visual support: Showing pictures, videos or children's books in different languages can certainly help. Children learn about languages in a fun way. So it can be valuable to have one bilingual children's book read aloud in the home language and Dutch or English.
Involve the parents in the language: Encourage parents to teach children the home language in addition to Dutch. This, for example, with exercise material in both Dutch and the home language. This gives the children extra support at home to master different languages.

Multilingual books at school

Foreign language books should therefore not be missing at school, but where do you start as a school to add books in different languages to the school library? It is first of all important to map out which languages are spoken by the students. Based on this inventory, you can then see which languages you want to add to the school library.

This can be a difficult process at first, because where do you find children's books in different languages? Bee BukiBook We offer a wide range of children's books in foreign languages. We are happy to think along with you and help you select the right book titles for your school.