A Better Start to Reading – for emergent bilinguals

This online EdX course has been designed using research and resources arising out of the E tipu, e rea, A better start, National Science Challenge in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Parents, families and teachers, kaiako, learn how to use the shared book reading context in the most effective way to support children’s early reading development and learn how to prevent reading problems in children. To benefit all young children, it specifically focuses on the key foundational skills of phonological awareness, print concepts, and vocabulary knowledge for children aged 4-6 years. Importantly it includes ways to support children from different languages and cultures to experience reading success.

As a grandmother of an emergent bilingual (English/Māori) I found the books provided online along with narrated versions valuable. Within the course the videos of parents reading with their children were very good, and further enhanced by the course leaders highlighting key points. These videos included bilingual adults and children with a range of languages including Māori and French.

When developing reading with a child who has more than one language we are encouraged to use all the child’s language resources. Therefore, it is important to sound out letters and syllables etc, when the sounds will vary with the language. Here is part of a bilingual English-French conversation as the parent and her child look at a page that includes a word that starts with the letter W,

Parent: W. What sound does it make in English? "Wih". And in French?
Child (5-6 years old): It can also be ‘wih’ or it can make a ‘vih’ like in ‘wagons’. ‘Wih’ or ‘vih’.

These books and narrated versions of ABS early school readers are freely available online from the project web site. At the back of the books are some other activities to support children's letter knowledge and phonological awareness development with ways to use these skills for their reading attempts. Find the books and other materials here: