‘Cuentos bilingues’: Wichita library story hour offers children more than one language
Learning more than one language can be beneficial for a child in the long run. A story hour program at the Evergreen Community Center and Library called Cuentos Bilingues (bilingual stories) is helping to do just that.
Sarah McNeil, the youth services librarian at Evergreen, leads the story time and reads to preschool-aged children once a week. McNeil says the program helps build foundational skills for the future.
“We incorporate English and Spanish into our story hour and we learn new words,” McNeil said. “That will either help reinforce those languages that are spoken at home or help families that are wanting to teach English and Spanish to their children.”
“It’s kind of a mix, you know. We get children that are speaking Spanish at home, and then children that are wanting to learn Spanish or their families wanting to support that,” McNeil added.
Studies show that children who are bilingual have an easier time understanding math concepts and word problems, and develop stronger thinking skills and the ability to learn more languages, according to talkingisteaching.org.
“Being bilingual supports children in maintaining strong ties with their family, culture and community. All of these are key parts of a child’s developing identity,” according to a graphic from Talking Is Teaching, run by Too Small To Fail, an early childhood initiative of the Clinton Foundation that focuses on literacy and language opportunities for family and children.
Shannon Nakai says her family are “big fans” of different story times offered by Wichita Public Libraries, but last week was her first time at Cuentos Bilingues.
Nakai grew up in a multicultural home. Her father, an immigrant of Japan, spoke fluent Japanese, but currently her household mainly speaks English.
“I was looking at all the different story times I can take my kids to and I saw this one and I thought ‘Oh, this is good.’ Nakai said. “They’re doing the story time in English and Spanish. I want to expose my kids to that so that they’re just not hearing Spanish lessons from me.”
Nakai says she will continue to attend Cuentos Bilingues because she supports her kids learning Spanish.
“I think this is a good exposure to learning a language that so many people speak. I hope that my kids can learn to communicate with more than just their own community as well,” Nakai said.
Evergreen, 2601 N. Arkansas, has offered the bilingual story hour for years. The program could expand to other library branches at some point, but no specific plans are set.
Cuentos Bilingues will be held from 10:30 to 11 a.m. every Wednesday through Dec. 7. A full calendar of library story times can be found at wichitalibrary.org/storytimes.