De Nationale Voorleesdagen voor meertalige kinderen - The National Storytelling Days for multilingual children

Reading in the home language

Reading aloud to children is an enjoyable experience for both parent and child. For the multilingual children in Eindhoven, reading together with family in the home language is a great way to encounter new words, to discover stories from the home culture, and to foster a life-long love of reading.

Don’t worry: reading in the home language should not hinder your child from learning the Dutch language. In fact, a strong basis in the home language and a love for books only helps when children learn Dutch!

International Children’s Book Collection

There are many engaged language communities in our region that have organized activities to get children reading in the home language, including providing books for Eindhoven Library’s International Children’s Book Collection. The international collection currently contains books for children aged 0 to 12 in over ten languages! It is free for children to join the library and borrow books, even if they do not live in Eindhoven. See www.hlenet.org/international-library for details.

The National Storytelling Days for multilingual children

Between January 24 and February 3, “De Nationale Voorleesdagen” will be celebrated across the Netherlands, to stimulate reading to children aged 0 to 6. Central to this is the Dutch “picture book of the year” Help! Een verrassing! by Miriam Bos

Eindhoven Library, Heritage Language Education Network, and numerous language groups are organizing a series of events during the National Storytelling Days, especially for multilingual children. Several language groups will hold their own reading of the picture book between the dates of January 24 and February 3. You can find the schedule for these individual readings by searching for “voorlezen” in the library’s agenda.

Special event on January 27

On Saturday, January 27, in the theater of Eindhoven Library between 14:00 and 16:15 there will be a reading of Help! Een verrassing! in six different languages. Everyone is welcome!

With this series of events, we want to promote the International Children's Book Collection, to put these language groups in the spotlight, and to stimulate reading in the home language. Let's celebrate the rich linguistic diversity of our region, and let all languages shine!

Curious about how it went last year? Check out the coverage from 2023:

www.hlenet.org

Eindhoven Library's National Reading Days for multilingual children is a big success, with 15 languages included.