Here is the description
Literacy difficulties have lifelong implications for academic achievement, employment, mental health, and quality of life. Early storybook reading (ESR) is considered one of the most effective methods early childhood educators (ECE) and parents can engage in to strengthen language development to establish a solid foundation for children’s later literacy success. While it is widely accepted that reading is important with babies and young children, much of the information available to early childhood educators (ECE) and parents on ESR is anecdotal and not based on empirical evidence that has demonstrated that the recommended strategies support language development. Moreover, there is limited information for multilingual families and access to services may be a barrier for families who live in regional/remote areas. This project, StoryBabies: Reading with multilingual babies and young children, aims to empower ECE and families across Australia and abroad, who work with multilingual families by providing an ESR intervention through two video recorded workshops. These workshops will include families from two different languages (such as Vietnamese, Arabic, Cantonese, Italian, and Mandarin) and will be based on an ESR intervention that was previously found to be effective (Brown, Westerveld, Trembath, & Gillon, 2018). Innovation will be demonstrated by focusing on multilingual families and supporting access to ECE and families who live in regional/remote locations. These two ESR workshops will include information and video recorded demonstrations of reading with multilingual babies and young children. StoryBabies will be freely available to ECE and families through a public website such as The Multilingual Children’s website created by Professor Sharynne McLeod.
Aims and objectives of the project: StoryBabies: Reading with multilingual babies and young children aims to equip early childhood educators and families with information and video demonstrations of how to strengthen language development with multilingual babies and young children, through early storybook reading. StoryBabies also aims to support early childhood educators and families with access to this freely available, evidence based resource regardless of their location.
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| Dr Michelle Brown with Prof Sharynne McLeod (post doc supervisor) and Prof Gail Gillon (PhD supervisor) who have supported her research into early storybook reading |
