Reading aloud in early childhood education services from an intercultural perspective

Abstract

The paper aims to show how, within the ECEC services 0-6, the practice of reading aloud is a valid tool to educate to interculture and to value the differences, intended as the specificities that charac-terize each child, from the first years of life. Starting from the awareness of the many benefits that reading aloud offers, the article reflects on the importance of a competent educational staff, who can create the appropriate opportunities for children to experience reading and interact with the book, through a quality reading education and the pleasure of reading, from an intercultural perspective. In early childhood education and care contexts, in fact, intercultural education is declined in its most practical and operational aspects, taking shape as a perspective that highlights the common traits of children and those that make each one different from another, according to an approach that is trans-versal to all educational practices. Within this framework, in order to contribute in ECEC services to the dissemination of good practice of reading aloud, which adequately transmit intercultural ped-agogical messages, care must be taken in choosing the books to be proposed. Quality picturebooks represent an educational tool to stimulate empathy, curiosity and dialogue and they can encourage the development of intercultural thinking in children, offering them a model of relationship and co-existence in diversity. It is in this perspective that the article presents five picturebooks that we believe can encourage in children the identification and sharing of emotions and experiences, showing how reading quality texts aloud is a precious opportunity to bring them closer to the theme of individual diversity, to know and recognize themselves.