Our Primary Library is situated at a major crossroad in our school and an ideal place to access children, staff and parents alike.
Steps so far:
* A large selection of books linked to raising multilingual children and general EAL pedagogy
* School subscription to Bilingual Family Newsletter
* An increasing selection of bilingual books. (Click here for a supplier we have successfully used)
But although we have invested in these resources they are not currently used as much as we would like.
So steps for the future:
* To continue to build up our stock of bilingual books but also to add good quality DVDs in a range of languages.
* To add multilingual displays and posters to the library
* Lunchtime book reading by parents in their mother tongue
* Providing INSET and material in a variety of languages for parents on good reading practice
* Promoting all of the above in the school community!!!!
If you have any other ways you are using your school library to promote Home Languages please send them in to share.
In our primary library we have a World Languages section with books (largely donated by parents) in 15 plus different languages. Parents looking for a bedtime story in their mother language and students looking for something not too hard to read in their mother language enjoy the section. Also on the library website parents can access Bookflix, Tumblebooks (English / French / Spanish), BrainPop. We also encourage parents to check out the International Children's Digital Library for other books in their languages. Grade 5 students read in their mother language to younger students during Mother Language Week (Feb 21 'ish) and the library is very active / pivotal in promoting litracy in mother languages by encouraging students to check out books in their mother language as well as English . For us Parent participation has been the key in getting the books donated. We in fact have very few bilingual books. Hope this helps .... Your comment reminds me that we need to get the Bilingual Family Newsletter up on the website too! - Nancy in Muscat
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