The project Open the Door to Reading aims to support children’s living and learning conditions through language and literacy development. The focus is early universal interventions in order to support social inclusion regarding education, health and living conditions of children. This transnational partnership aims to raise competence among professionals’ and create opportunities to develop their skills in order for them to support vulnerable children and their families in the field of education and reading. The project’s ambition is to exchange innovative practice and develop new tools within this field. Furthermore Open the Door to Reading correlates with both the Europe 2020 Strategy which emphasis the importance of social inclusion and the aim of the Erasmus+ programs to reduce early school leaving. Giving every child a good start in life and good preconditions throughout the school years is essential to reduce inequalities in health and living conditions. Early language development and reading is highlighted as fundamental aspects of this complex challenge. It is known that efforts made early on in life have effect throughout life – positive factors tend to accumulate over time. The most important resource to benefit children’s early language development is the parents/guardians. How to support parents/guardians is therefore a key issue in ensuring equal opportunities for children. In regard to social inclusion there is a need to develop new interventions in order to reduce inequality further. The project Open the Door to Reading will address the needs of more vulnerable groups in society and pay particular attention to the development of methods to support illiterate parents and children growing up in multilingual environments. The target group for the project is children between 0-6 years and their parents/guardians. The projects goal is to develop professional’s skills, tools and methods to support parents/guardians and their ability to inspire and influence their children's reading ability and access to literature. Example of professionals: pre-school teachers, librarians and Family Centre staff. The overall methodology will consist of three parts: - Exchange between professionals from different fields: education, health and library/literacy - Innovation and improvement of existing tools at a local level and benchmarking of tools and practices between the partner cities - Implementation of new tools and practices at a local level The partnership consists of five partner cities; Gothenburg, Brussels, Bristol, Turku, and Milan. The partners involved represent their cities overall commitment towards closing the gap in health inequality. Each partner will host a transnational project meeting in order to exchange and transfer ongoing practices within the different fields and develop new knowledge. The transnational meetings will address the projects overall theme from different perspectives through seminars, workshops and study visits. The project outcomes consist of a Booklet for parents and/or professionals and two multiplier events; Seminar and workshop in Brussels and seminar in Milan. The events will be organized in order to present the results and outcomes of the partnership and open to professionals, politicians and experts with an interest in early universal interventions, equality of health and reading promotion. A durable and long lasting achievement of knowledge, skills and competences in the field of reading promotion and early literacy, especially regarding socially disadvantaged groups, is one central impact on a professional level. The exchange of good practices, methods and tools will also strengthen implementation in each partner’s respective local strategies. Overall the project will bring about a better understanding and knowledge of how the theme of health inequalities is addressed on European level and result in a European network of new colleagues to exchange ideas and experiences with after the project period. Furthermore a booklet is developed and distributed during the project and used in the partner cities. Durable results among families leading to better living conditions for both children and their parents where families are empowered to support their children’s early language development, is a potential longer term benefit of the project.
Inequalities in living conditions and health is a reality for many of the world's cities today. It is also the context of which the project Open the door for reading has emerged. The report, Closing the gap in a generation (WHO 2005), has resulted in strategies in many European cities, of which the partners cities Gothenburg, Bristol, Brussels, Milan and Turku are examples. The action plans undertaken by these cities address the general and specific challenges to enable better livelihood and equality for all. Support for social sustainability exists on all levels, for example the UN Agenda 2030, the European Pillar of Social Rights, the emphasis on social inclusion in the Erasmus+ program. Within this framework all five partner cities are committed towards implementing actions and/or policies to support a good start in life for all children. This ambition has been the common ground for the partnership and Gothenburg´s initiative “The city where we read to our children” has been a driving force for the project’s theme and content. Early language development and reading is perceived as a fundamental right of the child as it plays a vital role in a child's ability and motivation to learn during school years. Open the Door to Reading has been geared towards strengthening the support of children’s language and literacy development. The most important resource to encourage children’s language development are the parents. Focus has therefore been on developing supportive methods to strengthen parent’s ability to support their children. The partners have exchanged innovative practices as well as developed new tools within this field. The projects cross-sectoral structure involved professionals from pre-schools, library’s, child health care services and family Centres. The aim was to share and improve existing tools and methods and in partnership develop a training manual for professionals from different fields of expertise on how to reach children and their families. Transnational Partner Meetings (TPM) have been used to share and develop competence around reading promotion. Each partner has hosted a three-day TPM with a specific theme which included presentations of good practice, study visits and workshops. Workshops around the training manual were also implemented. The five TPMs enrolled 140 people participants (pre-school teachers, librarians, family centre staff, strategic planners in education, university teachers, adult education and teachers working with multilingual families). Two Multiplier Events have been held, in Brussels and in Milan which included representatives from different academic fields and professionals giving both an operative and a strategic perspective to reading promotion. The events reached in total over 250 people, far greater than anticipated in the project proposal. The Training Manual (TM) for professionals is a supportive guide and provides a selection of tools and methods professionals can use on a general basis as well as directed at specific targets groups. Over 190 professionals have taken part in the testing and local follow-up of the TM. The project has influenced the cities' in so many ways and has had an impact at both an operative and policy level. For example, Gothenburg´s programme has inspired Bristol’s new strategy ‘Bristol: A Reading City’ and Milan has implemented a group of Reading Ambassadors. The TPM in Brussels, presented kamishibai as a method to support language learning in early childhood education which generated great interest amongst the librarians from Turku who applied for national funding to implement the kamishibai in Turku. The cross-sectorial collaboration between professionals are the most prominent long-term benefit. Milan has for example introduced a strategic multi-stakeholder group, composed of the early childhood services area, library area and the Health Department. In Turku, the library sector has set up a new network between pre-schools, child welfare, NGOs, church, children culture planner, and director of early childhood education. The TM as an educational tool will also have long-term benefits within the cities. Supporting a continuation of reading promotion and the knowledge amongst professionals on the importance of early intervention and child literacy support. This is expected to have a long-term effect in the form of new co-designed approaches. The partner cities are now also better equipped to adapted reading promotion to meet the needs of children and parents. There is greater insight into steps needed to stimulate reading and literacy from a very early age and better understanding of the needs and challenges facing vulnerable families and their children. Hopefully, the knowledge and practices from this partnership, will lead to greater opportunities for young children, especially those children growing up in a non-literary environment. By supporting children’s learning conditions, we can contribute to the greater goal; social equality.