One of the challenges that English Learners face today is that students may not have the resources to have books at home, or parents may not fully understand the importance of having books in the home, or even how to read with their children.
Research about Second Language Acquisition Theory demonstrates the importance of fostering home language, for strong first language skills, in order to transfer successfully into the second language. According to Dr. Stephen Krashen, an expert in Second Language Acquisition Theory “Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language – natural communication – in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding.”
Bilingual books will meet Latino parents and students wherever they are on the spectrum of reading and learning English skills. Consider the parents who want to be involved with their children, but who make lack English skills to read children’s books in English, or parents who may not have the history of being read to themselves as children, they can read the book in Spanish to the best of their ability, with the opportunity to fully express themselves in their first language, before they attempt to learn the second language.
In our K-12 school system today, many children are learning English much faster than their parents, leaving parents left out of the process of reading if the book is entirely in English.
The beauty of collecting bilingual books to create a lending library for EL students and their parents, is that parents can read with their kids and it will help to reinforce the students connection to literature and the home-school connection, while supporting opportunities for language and vocabulary development. A book in just English does not allow the parents to fully read to their children and be engaged. Additionally, if the book is just in Spanish language, it doesn’t afford the parent or the student to learn or enhance their English skills.
“The best methods are therefore those that supply ‘comprehensible input’ in low anxiety situations, containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early production in the second language, but allow students to produce when they are ‘ready’, recognizing that improvement comes from supplying communicative and comprehensible input, and not from forcing and correcting production.” Stephen Krashen
Books that are specifically culturally familiar and meaningful are particularly needed in the Latino community and will help to foster more language opportunities and discussion about the book, which leads to better comprehension in reading.
It also provides schools with an opportunity for teachers to communicate with parents and share reading materials with them to show support.
Bilingual Books for El Students make it possible for teachers and school communities to invite parents and students to choose books to check out, and read together at home.