Access to books in a child's home language, including dual-language books, provides powerful way to help boost language development and children's engagement in reading for pleasure, ensuring inclusion and representation.
Research on multilingual reading
Our research on Multilingual young people’s reading found that multilingual young people are more engaged with reading than their monolingual peers, read more frequently, and read a greater variety of formats than their monolingual peers. Key findings include:
- Nearly 3 in 5 (56.4%) multilingual young people said that they enjoy reading in their free time - higher than the percentage of their monolingual peers who say this (46.3%).
- For a sizeable percentage of children and young people, reading in languages other than English also unlocks their reading enjoyment, with 2 in 5 of those who said that they don’t enjoy reading generally telling us that they enjoy reading in their other language.
- For many (73.6%), their other language is an important part of their identity. However, 2 in 5 (40.4%) said that they would like their multilingual skills to be more recognised in their school.
- While young people are equally likely to appreciate diversity in books regardless of their language background, more multilingual than monolingual young people said that reading about characters that are like them makes them feel more confident about themselves (40.9% vs. 32.3%).
Benefits of dual language and multilingual books
In school, both in the classroom and school library, access to dual-language books and books in their home language books helps multilingual pupils feel that the language used in their home and community is valued. These books can also open up class discussion about other cultures and languages.
At home, these books help parents to read with their children, boosting confidence in storytelling, and embedding reading as an enjoyable family activity.
Reading dual language books encourages children to see similarities and differences between words and syntax across the languages, and can help build their vocabulary in both. For children who speak only one language, dual language books can introduce them to a range of languages they may not have come across before.
Access to such books can help both parents and children feel included and represented in stories.
Our multi-language booklist
Our Young Readers Programme at the National Literacy Trust has been helping children develop a love of reading for over 25 years, amassing a wealth of experience in developing booklists to suit a wide range of reading interests.
We've teamed up with specialist independent publishers to compile a fabulous list of titles available in a range of languages. The list includes both fiction and non-fiction, covers age ranges from birth to 13, and encompasses a wide range of languages.
Our thanks go to b small publishing, The Emma Press, Little Linguist, Bok Bok Books and Mantra Lingua.
Download the list below - you'll need to be logged in as a free or premium member.