Presentation by: Michelle Gilman, Bonny Norton
Session: Session A | Time: 9:00 AM – 9:40 AM | Location: Room 200
Storybooks Canada is an open access digital innovation developed by a UBC team to promote multilingual literacy for young Canadians. A derivative of the African Storybook, the website has 40 illustrated stories, in text and audio, in English and French, as well as the main immigrant and refugee languages of Canada. Our sister project is Indigenous Storybooks Canada (http://indigenousstorybooks.ca/). The questions in our pilot study include how the stories can best be used to promote early reading; how to relate the stories to the new BC curriculum; and how parents can be encouraged to use the stories. Our data is drawn from 20 volunteer elementary school tutors across greater Vancouver. Insights are being sought through questionnaires, interviews, and focus-group discussions. Our theoretical framework draws on literacy as a social practice.
The preliminary results of the pilot study indicate a favorable response for Storybooks Canada being used both at home and in schools. In the school context, of central interest is the ways in which the stories can be related to the school curriculum. Within the home context, the tutors see the benefit of being able to send reading home with children so that all members of the family are able to share in and learn from the reading experience, particularly given the challenges of navigating both home and school languages. Of particular interest is the tutors’ assessment that Storybooks Canada can build exciting and productive home/school reading partnerships.
An open access digital story program that promotes multiculturalism and multilingualism is relevant for all participants attending the Investigating Our Practice Conference.
3 Questions for discussion:
1. To what extent can multilingual stories promote early literacy for diverse children?
2. How can we integrate Storybooks Canada into the BC curriculum?
3. How can multicultural/multilingual stories be used to promote partnerships between schools and homes?
Abstract: 556