MEDIAL

Multilingual Dialogic Reading (MEDIAL)
Joint project of the Technical University of Dortmund and the University of Wuppertal
One of the most important family language support measures is reading aloud. Dialogue-based reading is an evidence-based method for promoting language and other precursor skills to learning to read. This involves holding dialogues with the children during a structured reading aloud and interaction situation in which language development strategies and modelling techniques are consistently applied. Multilingual caregivers are best able to provide high-quality and cognitively stimulating language input in the language that they themselves speak best. However, it is unclear whether home literacy activities such as DL only have a positive effect on skills in the language in which they are carried out, or whether and under what conditions cross-linguistic transfer effects occur.
In order to promote the prerequisites for multilingual children to learn to read in a more targeted way, an existing and already positively evaluated professionalisation measure for educational professionals in dialogue-based reading is being supplemented by training for multilingual caregivers in dialogue-based reading at home, optimised together with practitioners and its effectiveness evaluated. Analogue and digital materials in different language versions enable DL in all of a child's languages. To test its effectiveness, we are conducting a large Clustered Randomised Controlled Trial (CRCT) in which we follow children and their caregivers for approximately 1.5 years from the beginning of the last year of nursery school to the end of the first half-year of primary school (pre-, post- and follow-up). We examine the children's development of precursor skills (e.g. vocabulary, grammar, phonological awareness in German and selected non-German languages), basic reading skills at the end of the first year of primary school and their dual identification with two languages and cultures. For the caregivers, we also examine dual identification and the development of their literacy activities. The results on the effectiveness of the combined professionalisation measure for educational professionals and caregivers in multilingual dialogue-based reading could contribute to taking better account of the multilingual lifeworld of children and their caregivers and to increasing the appreciation of linguistic and cultural diversity in our society.

Management (University of Wuppertal)
Prof Dr Michael Grosche
Dr Birgit Ehl

Project management / application:
Michael Grosche and Birgit Ehl (University of Wuppertal),
Anna-Lena Scherger (Dortmund University of Technology)

Duration:
06/2026 - 05/2029

Funded by:
Federal Ministry of Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMBFSFJ)