The Meadowridge Library has grown the Home Language Book Collection steadily over these last few years, finding the best books in the array of languages spoken in our community. In celebration of National Mother Tongue Day, we checked in with our Teacher Librarians and two students to find out more about this now 400+ item collection.
From our librarians
Why do we foster a Home Language collection? To encourage families to read together at home so they can connect, celebrate, and continue home language learning. The collection also reflects the diverse nature of our school, and is supported by our entire community. Parents have donated home language books, so have grad classes as their legacy gift. It’s a wonderful way for people to connect over a common story while also supporting bilingualism and dual-language learning. Reading (in any language) develops important thinking skills like making inferences, predictions, connections, and more.
What are you most proud of about the collection? The growth. We see students head straight to the home language collection—they’re excited to take a book out and read it at home with their families. As librarians, we love circulation stats! That’s where we see that the books are being borrowed and used. We also see it for ourselves every day, we hear students say, “my grandpa read this to me and he only speaks Chinese” or “I can’t wait to read this with my dad”.
From our students
Lauren (Ren) P., Grade 8
I borrowed a home language book because… From a really early age, I’ve been interested in learning languages. Over the summer, I really had not much to do. I was wondering, what am I going to do to entertain myself? I wanted to learn Japanese, which is quite different culturally but pretty straightforward in grammar structure. Overall, I really love the language and the culture!
My favourite part of the book was… The vertical text. It was the first book I read in Japanese and it was not easy. I started in August, and am only now going used to the vocabulary, character identification and getting familiar with the styles.
The Home Language Collection is great because… It’s inclusive. My old school was very small, so we basically had a small library for our whole school. Meadowridge is a bigger school, which I like because I have access to resources I never did before. Self-learning a language is very difficult, so these books are helpful.
Wesley C., Kindergarten
I borrowed a home language book because… I chose it all by myself. I like trains, and I like Thomas the Train. I read the book with my dad.
My favourite part of the book was… I like the pictures. My dad made funny voices when he read it to me. I like the train station and there are lots of cross tracks.
The Home Language Collection is great because… I can read with my dad.