"Why can't she remember that?"

The Importance of storybook reading in multilingual, multicultural classrooms

By: Terry Meier

“Despite their diverse backgrounds, all children bring to school rich linguistic abilities acquired through social interaction in their homes and communities” – This is very true. Meier gives you a great insight into this as well with explaining Marisa, Lem, and Gabriela’s upbringing and home lives.

Children learn all different ways, and it is important as the teacher to be aware of this and take the initiative to bring in different ways of teaching into the classroom. With focusing on: The importance on connecting children to text, the 3 main points really do a great job explaining and making the reader understand the importance.

1.      Choose books that relate to children’s lives: I feel like if a child can relate to a book, it is easier for them to learn and understand.

2.      Teach book reading behaviors explicitly: “it is especially important in multilingual, multicultural classrooms for children to feel (a) that their teachers’ comments and responses “make sense” and (b) that these either fit with, or differ from in understandable ways, the assumptions about language that they bring from home.” This quote is very true. It is important for the child to understand what the teacher is saying and understand why something is different from the way they know it.

3.      Make books come alive: When Meier discusses the use of “dolls and puppets to help read books in lively and engaging ways, children can use them to dramatize the story in the book or to create new dialogues and stories of their own.” I never really thought about how using something like a puppet could have such a learning difference to a child. It makes complete sense. 

There were many new and positive things I learned. This article was extremely informative and I took a lot away from reading this.