DURHAM, N.C. — About one of five students in North Carolina public schools say a language other than English is spoken at home, according to the Department of Public Instruction.
In a December report, the North Carolina General Assembly said more than 170,000 students identify as English language learners in the state. As that number continues to grow, some families are getting extra help with bilingual literacy for their children.
One organization, Book Harvest, is working to get kids excited about reading in any language through story time and free books.
“For us it's very important because we live in such a diverse community,” Giavanni Parker said. “We always want the families that come here to be represented and to see themselves and feel like they belong at Book Harvest.”
Parker is the family engagement coordinator, and one of her biggest goals is to create a space for bilingual and Spanish-speaking families. Book Harvest mainly serves Durham County, where 15% of the population is Hispanic.
Parker says bilingual story times are meant to foster a love of Spanish speakers’ native language in a community where children speak primarily English in school. Her coworker, Gisela Mora, grew up in a Spanish-speaking home but was encouraged to speak English when her family moved to the United States from Mexico.
“Being taught a different language in school and kind of being encouraged not to speak Spanish was pretty difficult,” Mora said. “It's like a hard balance for a child to ask a child to do that.”
Mora said she’s happy there is more progress with encouraging bilingual education now.
“We're also sharing moments of joy and connection and just relationship building between caregiver and child,” Mora said. “And those opportunities aren't always so accessible or available to families that speak Spanish.”
“I think what we're doing here is really cool because we're inviting those families,” she said. “We're not just acknowledging that they exist, but we're saying, hey, you're welcome here.”
Learning how to read, write and speak two languages at once is difficult. If children don’t get enough exposure in school, organizations like Book Harvest can help them feel proud of their culture while learning to communicate well with English speakers.
“Creating that separation of the two while also representing both, if that makes sense, is really important,” Parker said. “Just fostering both of the loves for those languages.”
Book Harvest has been devoted to early childhood literacy since 2011. The organization has provided more than 2 million books to families in North Carolina through the years. Its goal is to help equip parents with the tools and power they need to ignite and strengthen their students' literacy skills.