Read with Multilingual Early Education
Read with MEE
The Erasmus+ project Read with Multilingual Early Education (Read with MEE) will develop innovative tools and resources to advance key literacy skills of young multilingual children (2-6 y/o). The project responds to a pressing challenge, since children who grow up multilingually often face unequal educational opportunities compared to their monolingual peers. In order to support the development of multilingual children’s early literacy skills, the project promotes the use of children’s home languages during reading as well as the use of a dialogic reading approach. By including their home languages in reading, the Read with MEE project focusses on key European priorities, such as inclusion and diversity in education, and the tackling of children’s low proficiency in basic skills.
Read with MEE is a cooperation between six partners representing the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, and Spain, and is coordinated by Mercator European Research Centre.
Research theme: Multilingualism and Language Learning
Duration: December 2023 - December 2026
Coordinating partner: Mercator/ Fryske Akademy
Mercator Staff: Martine Jansen, Jelske Dijkstra
Funding: Erasmus+ / KA220-SCH - Cooperation partnerships in school education
Collaboration with: ATiT (BE), NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences (NL), 8D Games (NL), Trinity College Dublin (IE), University of the Basque Country (ES)
More information: Project website
Project aims
Read with Multilingual Early Education aims to support multilingual children’s literacy development by:
- increasing knowledge and strengthening skills related to inclusive and multilingual early literacy and linguistic diversity. Research has shown that, unlike their monolingual peers, multilingual children often face unequal educational opportunities, which in turn leads to an “achievement gap” between monolingual and multilingual children. In order to close this gap, our project will focus on the literacy development of children belonging to national, regional, migrant, and refugee minorities, and will address their full linguistic repertoire;
- promoting interactive and engaging book reading in a number of multilingual contexts, such as early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres, libraries, and children’s home environments. This holistic approach aims to take advantage of children’s multilingual environments, and will allow them to develop positive attitudes towards linguistic diversity and home languages along the way;
- working closely with experts and professionals from the field to ensure that our products are based on the latest findings from multilingual and early literacy research, and to make sure that the products align with concrete needs from practitioners.
Products
We are committed to providing pedagogical staff, librarians, and families with several practical tools to increase the educational opportunities of multilingual children.
These products include:
- a practical guide Handbook-INC: Inclusive Multiliteracy Development for All which includes information and best practices related to literacy development, as well as criteria to determine the quality of children’s inclusive literature;
- videos explaining key concepts of multilingual literacy development;
- videos displaying best practices across Europe;
- an online library with inclusive multilingual books;
- a community platform;
- a “referatory” which refers to relevant projects, publications, and experts.