Multilingual reading actions: Experience diversity in everyday day care centers!

Multilingual reading actions: Experience diversity in everyday day care centers!

More and more children in Germany grow up multilingual, which is both an enrichment and a challenge for educators and parents. For this reason, the Mettmann district integration center has launched practical workshops for multilingual reading in cooperation with educational institutions. These initiatives were recently launched and are intended to help promote access to language and stories and at the same time show appreciation for different cultures. Numerous children who live in families with a migration background benefit from these reading actions.

The first event took place on January 27th in the DRK daycare center in color in Wülfrath. Mayor Rainer Ritsche actively took part and emphasized the importance of multilingual education for integration. The lectures were offered in German, Italian, Albanian and Russian, which gave the participants valuable tips for carrying out multilingual reading hours. These are essential skills, since over 21% of children who visited a daycare center in 2022 live in families in which one language is primarily spoken than German, according to a report by the educational server.

planned workshops in February

To increase the range of these programs, two more workshops are planned for February. The first will take place on February 10 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Mettmann city library. The second workshop will be held on February 12 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Evangelical Integrative Kita Lerchenweg in Monheim. The workshops are aimed at all interested parties who want to work for multilingual education and offer a platform for the exchange of experiences and methods.

The successful implementation of these workshops depends not only on the participation of the reading venues, but also on the ongoing support from educational institutions. In the coming weeks, further workshops in Ratingen and Velbert will also be planned. Interested parties can register via the district integration center Mettmann by email to integration@kreis-mettmann.de or by phone at 02104 992124 or 02104 992212.

multilingualism in the early years

The discussion about multilingualism is of central importance in Germany, since more and more children with different language backgrounds are represented in the educational institutions. Statistics show that the proportion of children from multilingual households has increased in recent years, which underlines the importance of such programs. In West Germany, almost a quarter of the daycare children mostly speaks one other language than German, while in East Germany every twelfth child is affected.

The situation in Berlin is even more pronounced: Here the proportion of migration in children and adolescents is 40 percent. In this context, projects such as “early start” to language support and intercultural education are becoming increasingly important. Different organizations, including the Association of Binational Families and Partnerships, are committed to equality from all people and promoting multilingualism in educational institutions.