Description
Born to Read – from which it also originated Born to Read Amsterdam – is an Italian national program of promotion of reading addressed to families with preschool children, promoted by the Cultural Association of Paediatricians, the Italian Association of Libraries and the CSB Onlus Child Health Centre.
Dal 1999, Born to Read has the objective of promoting reading in the family from birth, because reading with a certain continuity to children has a positive influence on their intellectual, linguistic, emotional and relational development, with significant effects throughout adult life.
The program is active throughout the Italian territory with about 800 local projects involving more than 2000 Italian municipalities. Local projects are promoted by librarians, pediatricians, educators, public bodies, cultural and voluntary associations.
In the city of Amsterdam the project is developed by Lo Boot in collaboration with the voluntary initiative Born to read – The Netherlands, which aims to promote reading aloud in Italian to children living in the Netherlands.
This practice offers several advantages, particularly in a context of bi-lingualism and multilingualism, including:
- the expansion of vocabulary Italian;
- the development of their own language skills, such as listening comprehension, pronunciation and grammar;
- exposure to Italian culture as well as the language, promoting a deeper understanding of one's cultural roots and greater appreciation of cultural diversity;
- the incentive to adapt and understand the differences between languages, which can improve the cognitive abilities.