MEDIAL

Multilingual dialogue 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-based 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 manner, 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. We also examine the dual identification and the development of literacy activities of the caregivers. The results on the effectiveness of the combined professionalisation measure for educational professionals and caregivers in multilingual dialogue-based reading could help to take better account of the multilingual lifeworld of children and their caregivers and to increase the appreciation of linguistic and cultural diversity in our society.

Project management / application (University of Wuppertal)
Prof Dr Michael Grosche
Dr Birgit Ehl

External project management / application:
Anna-Lena Scherger (Dortmund University of Technology)

Duration:
06/2026 - 05/2029

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